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From “Bitter-Sweet”
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 other side, | 25 |
| And slipped from Heaven on an ebbing tide! | |
| What does he think of his mother’s eyes? | |
| What does he think of his mother’s hair? | |
| What of the cradle-roof, that flies | |
| Forward and backward through the air? | 30 |
| What does he think of his mother’s 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 ’s hushed in sweet repose! | |
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