Shuffle-Shoon and Amber-Locks by Eugene Field

Shuffle-shoon and Amber-Locks / Sit together, building blocks; / Shuffle-Shoon is old and gray, / 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 leveled 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.