"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.

A baby was sleeping,
Its mother was weeping.

A baby was sleeping,
Its mother was weeping.

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?

He smiles, and sleeps!--sleep on
And smile, thou little, young inheritor
Of a world scarce less young: read more

He smiles, and sleeps!--sleep on
And smile, thou little, young inheritor
Of a world scarce less young: sleep on and smile!
Thine are the hours and days when both are cheering
And innocent!

Rock-bye-baby on the tree top,
When the wind blows the cradle will rock.
When the bough bends read more

Rock-bye-baby on the tree top,
When the wind blows the cradle will rock.
When the bough bends the cradle will fall,
Down comes the baby, cradle and all.

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),

A tight little bundle of wailing and flannel,
Perplex'd with the newly found fardel of life.

A tight little bundle of wailing and flannel,
Perplex'd with the newly found fardel of life.

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.

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!