A loud boxed ears!

With them ’tis hurry-scurry and play,

Or sleep in a round coil half the day;

While, creakety-creak, the rockers go,

And the mittens grow, and grow, and grow,

So shapely and fast—

They are done at last!

She summons the kittens; each one stands

While the mittens are tried on his clumsy hands;

Then her glasses drop to the end of her nose,

And her wits go wandering off in a doze,

And as never before,

Does old Puss snore!

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She is off to that dream-land paradise

Of cats, where cupboards are full of mice;

Where white and sweet and big as the sea

Are the saucers of warm new milk—ah me,

There is no cream

Like that in a dream!

There the ways of things are very absurd;

For a bobolink, or a yellow bird,

Comes of its own accord, and sits

On every knitting-needle that knits,

And pipes and sings,

As the rocker swings.