A baby was sleeping,
Its mother was weeping.

A baby was sleeping,
Its mother was weeping.

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),

"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?

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.

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!

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.

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."