There came to port last Sunday night
The queerest little craft,
Without an inch of rigging on;
read more

There came to port last Sunday night
The queerest little craft,
Without an inch of rigging on;
I looked and looked--and laughed.
It seemed so curious that she
Should cross the unknown water,
And moor herself within my room--
My daughter! O my daughter!

"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.

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?

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!

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.

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.

When the baby dies,
On every side
Rose stranger's voices, hard and harsh and loud.
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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.

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),