I often think of Auden's remark: "Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered."
If a poem/book/piece of music/etc. has been shared and loved by generations, however puzzling, however frustrating that fact might seem, there must be a reason. The winnowing of time is usually ruthless.
Anyway, I didn't grow up with this poem, and it does seem a little on the shallow side--not thick, not complex, not challenging, in the best modern way. But not everything has to work that way--why should it? And for what it's doing, there is a lot of lovely writing, memorable rhythms, and a few gentle hints of deeper meaning going on. (For instance, what is the speaker going from? And why are there no people in this fantasy, until the very end?)
Most of all, I think that a poem like this, with its evocative simplicity, can carry a lot more of the reader's own emotion. It's much easier, I think, to plug it into one's own life and family and childhood experiences, and fantasies, and memories, and all of that, than something more conventionally literary or complex. Like a song lyric--there's extra space within it that the reader can fill. And that has real value.
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