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),
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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!
Suck, baby! suck! mother's love grows by giving:
Drain the sweet founts that only thrive by wasting!
read more
Suck, baby! suck! mother's love grows by giving:
Drain the sweet founts that only thrive by wasting!
Black manhood comes when riotous guilty living
Hands thee the cup that shall be death in tasting.
A baby was sleeping,
Its mother was weeping.
A baby was sleeping,
Its mother was weeping.
O child! O new-born denizen
Of life's great city! on thy head
The glory of morn is read more
O child! O new-born denizen
Of life's great city! on thy head
The glory of morn is shed,
Like a celestial benison!
Here at the portal thou dost stand,
And with thy little hand
Thou openest the mysterious gate
Into the future's undiscovered land.
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.
When the baby dies,
On every side
Rose stranger's voices, hard and harsh and loud.
read more
When the baby dies,
On every side
Rose stranger's voices, hard and harsh and loud.
The baby was not wrapped in any shroud.
The mother made no sound. Her head was bowed
That men's eyes might not see
Her misery.
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.
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 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.
