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.

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.

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 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.

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!

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.

The hair she means to have is gold,
Her eyes are blue, she's twelve weeks old,
Plump read more

The hair she means to have is gold,
Her eyes are blue, she's twelve weeks old,
Plump are her fists and pinky.
She fluttered down in lucky hour
From some blue deep in yon sky bower--
I call her "Little Dinky."

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.