What is the little one thinking about?
Very wonderful things, no doubt;
Unwritten history!
read more

What is the little one thinking about?
Very wonderful things, no doubt;
Unwritten history!
Unfathomed mystery!
Yet he laughs and cries, and eats and drinks,
And chuckles and crows, and nods and winks,
As if his head were as full of kinks
And curious riddles as any sphinx!
- Josiah Gilbert Holland (used pseudonym Timothy Titcomb),

Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained
strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest read more

Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained
strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the
enemy and the avenger.

Have you not heard the poets tell
How came the dainty Baby Bell
Into this world of read more

Have you not heard the poets tell
How came the dainty Baby Bell
Into this world of ours?

The morning that my baby came
They found a baby swallow dead,
And saw a something hard read more

The morning that my baby came
They found a baby swallow dead,
And saw a something hard to name
Fly mothlike over baby's bed.

Sweet babe, in thy face
Soft desires I can trace,
Secret joys and secret smiles,
read more

Sweet babe, in thy face
Soft desires I can trace,
Secret joys and secret smiles,
Little pretty infant wiles.

How lovely he appears! his little cheeks
In their pure incarnation, vying with
The rose leaves strewn read more

How lovely he appears! his little cheeks
In their pure incarnation, vying with
The rose leaves strewn beneath them.
And his lips, too,
How beautifully parted! No; you shall not
Kiss him; at least not now; he will wake soon--
His hour of midday rest is nearly over.

He is so little to be so large!
Why, a train of cars, or a whale-back barge
read more

He is so little to be so large!
Why, a train of cars, or a whale-back barge
Couldn't carry the freight
Of the monstrous weight
Of all of his qualities, good and great.
And tho' one view is as good as another
Don't take my word for it. Ask his mother!

Sweet is the infant's waking smile,
And sweet the old man's rest--
But middle age by no read more

Sweet is the infant's waking smile,
And sweet the old man's rest--
But middle age by no fond wile,
No soothing calm is blest.

"The hand that rocks the cradle"--but there is no such hand.
It is bad to rock the baby, they read more

"The hand that rocks the cradle"--but there is no such hand.
It is bad to rock the baby, they would have us understand;
So the cradle's but a relic of the former foolish days,
When mothers reared their children in unscientific ways;
When they jounced them and they bounced them, those poor dwarfs
of long ago--
The Washingtons and Jeffersons, you know.