Shuffle-Shoon and Amber-Locks

Shuffle-Shoon and Amber-Locks
  Sit together, building blocks;
    Shuffle-Shoon is old and grey,
      Amber-Locks a little child,
    But together at their play
      Age and Youth are reconciled,
  And with sympathetic glee
  Build their castles fair to see.
  "When I grow to be a man"
 (So the wee one's prattle ran),
   "I shall build a castle so--
    With a gateway broad and grand;
   Here a pretty vine shall grow,
     There a soldier guard shall stand;
 And the tower shall be so high,
 Folks will wonder, by-and-by!"
 Shuffle-Shoon quoth: "Yes, I know;
 Thus I builded long ago!
   Here a gate and there a wall,
    Here a window, there a door;
   Here a steeple wondrous tall
     Riseth ever more and more!
 But the years have levelled low
 What I builded long ago!"
 So they gossip at their play,
 Heedless of the fleeting day;
   One speaks of the Long Ago
    Where his dead hopes buried lie;
   One with chubby cheeks aglow
     Prattleth of the By-and-By;
 Side by side, they build their blocks--
 Shuffle-Shoon and Amber-Locks.