When you fold your hands, Baby Louise!
Your hands like a fairy's, so tiny and fair,
With read more

When you fold your hands, Baby Louise!
Your hands like a fairy's, so tiny and fair,
With a pretty, innocent, saintlike air,
Are you trying to think of some angel-taught prayer
You learned above, Baby Louise.

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.

What is the little one thinking about?
Very wonderful things, no doubt;
Unwritten history!
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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),

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!

He is so little to be so large!
Why, a train of cars, or a whale-back barge
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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!

A baby was sleeping,
Its mother was weeping.

A baby was sleeping,
Its mother was weeping.

Sweet babe, in thy face
Soft desires I can trace,
Secret joys and secret smiles,
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Sweet babe, in thy face
Soft desires I can trace,
Secret joys and secret smiles,
Little pretty infant wiles.

Look! how he laughs and stretches out his arms,
And opens wide his blue eyes upon thine,
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Look! how he laughs and stretches out his arms,
And opens wide his blue eyes upon thine,
To hail his father; while his little form
Flutters as winged with joy. Talk not of pain!
The childless cherubs well might envy thee
The pleasures of a parent.

Suck, baby! suck! mother's love grows by giving:
Drain the sweet founts that only thrive by wasting!
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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.