{
 "id": "henry-van-dyke-jr/thomas-bailey-aldrich",
 "title": "Thomas Bailey Aldrich",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Henry van Dyke Jr.",
 "poet_slug": "henry-van-dyke-jr",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Poems of Henry Van Dyke",
 "book_slug": "poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 139,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1920,
  "venue": "The Poems of Henry Van Dyke (1920)",
  "note": "Taken from the 1920 collected edition. That is the printing this text comes from, not the poem's first appearance: the volume gathers work published from 1897 onward, and which earlier book or magazine printed this poem first has not been established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsofhenryvand00vandrich"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/henry-van-dyke-jr_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16229",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16134",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10679",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3525",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9372",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29314",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43094",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsofhenryvand00vandrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/buildersotherpoe00vandrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/toilingoffelixan00vandiala",
   "https://archive.org/details/musicotherpoems0000henr_c7v6",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsnowfirstcol00vanduoft",
   "https://archive.org/details/songsoutofdoors0000vand",
   "https://archive.org/details/thyseaisgreatour00vandiala",
   "https://archive.org/details/chosenpoems0000vand"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 38,
  "n_stanzas": 8,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 52,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Dear Aldrich, now November’s mellow days",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have brought another Festa round to you,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "You can’t refuse a loving-cup of praise",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From friends the fleeting years have bound to you.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Here come your Marjorie Daw, your dear Bad Boy,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Prudence, and Judith the Bethulian,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And many more, to wish you birthday joy,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And sunny hours, and sky cerulean!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Your children all, they hurry to your den,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With wreaths of honour they have won for you,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To merry-make your threescore years and ten.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You, old? Why, life has just begun for you!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "There’s many a reader whom your silver songs",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And crystal stories cheer in loneliness.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "What though the newer writers come in throngs?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You’re sure to keep your charm of only-ness.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "You do your work with careful, loving touch⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "An artist to the very core of you⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "You know the magic spell of “not-too-much”:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We read⁠—and wish that there was more of you.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And more there is: for while we love your books",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Because their subtle skill is part of you;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "We love you better, for our friendship looks",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Behind them to the human heart of you.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "This is the house where little Aldrich read",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The early pages of Life’s wonder-book",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "With boyish pleasure: in this ingle-nook",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "He watched the drift-wood fire of Fancy shed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bright colour on the pictures blue and red:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Boy-like he skipped the longer words, and took",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "His happy way, with searching, dreamful look",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Among the deeper things more simply said.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then, came his turn to write: and still the flame",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of Fancy played through all the tales he told,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And still he won the laurelled poet’s fame",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With simple words wrought into rhymes of gold.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Look, here’s the face to which this house is frame⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A man too wise to let his heart grow old!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}