"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.
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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!
Look! how he laughs and stretches out his arms,
And opens wide his blue eyes upon thine,
read more
Look! how he laughs and stretches out his arms,
And opens wide his blue eyes upon thine,
To hail his father; while his little form
Flutters as winged with joy. Talk not of pain!
The childless cherubs well might envy thee
The pleasures of a parent.
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),
Oh those little, those little blue shoes!
Those shoes that no little feet use.
Oh, the price read more
Oh those little, those little blue shoes!
Those shoes that no little feet use.
Oh, the price were high
That those shoes would buy,
Those little blue unused shoes!
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.
Her beads while she numbered,
The baby still slumbered,
And smile in her face, as she bended read more
Her beads while she numbered,
The baby still slumbered,
And smile in her face, as she bended her knee;
Oh! bless'd be that warning,
My child, thy sleep adorning,
For I know that the angels are whispering with thee.
Lo! at the couch where infant beauty sleeps;
Her silent watch the mournful mother keeps;
She, while read more
Lo! at the couch where infant beauty sleeps;
Her silent watch the mournful mother keeps;
She, while the lovely babe unconscious lies,
Smiles on her slumbering child with pensive eyes.
A baby was sleeping,
Its mother was weeping.
A baby was sleeping,
Its mother was weeping.
He seemed a cherub who had lost his way
And wandered hither, so his stay
With us read more
He seemed a cherub who had lost his way
And wandered hither, so his stay
With us was short, and 'twas most meet,
That he should be no delver in earth's clod,
Nor need to pause and cleanse his feet
To stand before his God:
O blest word--Evermore!
