Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry.
Volume I. Of Home: of Friendship. 1904. | | | | Poems of Home: I. About Children | | Seven Times Four | | Jean Ingelow (1820–1897) |
| | Maternity
HEIGH-HO! daisies and buttercups, | |
| Fair yellow daffodils, stately and tall! | |
| When the wind wakes, how they rock in the grasses, | |
| And dance with the cuckoo-buds slender and small! | |
| Here ’s two bonny boys, and here ’s mother’s own lasses, | 5 |
| Eager to gather them all. | |
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| Heigh-ho! daisies and buttercups! | |
| Mother shall thread them a daisy chain; | |
| Sing them a song of the pretty hedge-sparrow, | |
| That loved her brown little ones, loved them full fain; | 10 |
| Sing, “Heart, thou art wide, though the house be but narrow,”— | |
| Sing once, and sing it again. | |
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| Heigh-ho! daisies and buttercups, | |
| Sweet wagging cowslips, they bend and they bow; | |
| A ship sails afar over warm ocean waters, | 15 |
| And haply one musing doth stand at her prow. | |
| O bonny brown sons, and O sweet little daughters, | |
| Maybe he thinks on you now! | |
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| Heigh-ho! daisies and buttercups, | |
| Fair yellow daffodils, stately and tall— | 20 |
| A sunshiny world full of laughter and leisure, | |
| And fresh hearts unconscious of sorrow and thrall! | |
| Send down on their pleasure smiles passing its measure, | |
| God that is over us all! | | | | |
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