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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, | 5 |
And chuckles and crows, and nods and winks, | |
As if his head were as full of kinks | |
And curious riddles as any sphinx! | |
Warped by colic, and wet by tears, | |
Punctured by pins, and tortured by fears, | 10 |
Our little nephew will lose two years; | |
And he ll never know | |
Where the summers go; | |
He need not laugh, for he ll find it so! | |
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Who can tell what a baby thinks? | 15 |
Who can follow the gossamer links | |
By which the manikin feels his way | |
Out from the shore of the great unknown, | |
Blind, and wailing, and alone, | |
Into the light of day? | 20 |
Out from the shore of the unknown sea, | |
Tossing in pitiful agony, | |
Of the unknown sea that reels and rolls, | |
Specked with the barks of little souls | |
Barks that were launched on the otherside, | 25 |
And slipped from Heaven on an ebbing tide! | |
What does he think of his mothers eyes? | |
What does he think of his mothers hair? | |
What of the cradle-roof that flies | |
Forward and backward through the air? | 30 |
What does he think of his mothers breast | |
Bare and beautiful, smooth and white, | |
Seeking it ever with fresh delight | |
Cup of his life and couch of his rest? | |
What does he think when her quick embrace | 35 |
Presses his hand and buries his face | |
Deep where the heart-throbs sink and swell | |
With a tenderness she can never tell, | |
Though she murmur the words | |
Of all the birds | 40 |
Words she has learned to murmur well? | |
Now he thinks he ll go to sleep! | |
I can see the shadow creep | |
Over his eyes, in soft eclipse, | |
Over his brow, and over his lips, | 45 |
Out to his little finger-tips! | |
Softly sinking, down he goes! | |
Down he goes! Down he goes! | |
See! He is hushed in sweet response! | |
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