All over the Valley of Babyland
Sweet flowers bloom in the soft green moss,
And under the ferns fair, and under the plants there
Lie little heads like spools of floss.
With a soothing number the river of slumber
Flows o’er a bedway of silver sand;
And angels are keeping watch o’er the sleeping
Babes of Babyland.
The path to the Valley of Babyland
Only the kingly, kind storks know;
If they fly over mountains, or wade through fountains,
No man sees them come or go.
But an angel maybe, who guards some baby,
Or a fairy, perhaps, with her magic wand,
Brings them straightway to the wonderful gateway
That leads to Babyland.
And there, in the Valley of Babyland,
Under the mosses and leaves and ferns,
Like an unfledged starling they find the darling
For whom the heart of a mother yearns;
And they lift him lightly and snug him tightly
In feathers soft as a lady’s hand,
And off with a rockaway step they walk away
Out of Babyland.
As they go from the Valley of Babyland
Forth into the world of great unrest,
Sometimes weeping he wakes from sleeping
Before he reaches the mother’s breast.
Ah, how she blesses him, how she caresses him,
Bonniest bird in the bright home band
That o’er land and water the kind stork brought her
From far-off Babyland.
FISHING.
AYBE this is fun, sitting in the sun,
With a book and parasol, as my angler wishes,
While he dips his line in the ocean brine,
Under the impression that his bait will catch the fishes.
’Tis romantic—yes, but I must confess
Thoughts of shady rooms at home somehow seem more inviting.
But I dare not move—“Quiet there, my love!”
Says my angler, “for I think a monster fish is biting.”
Oh, of course, it’s bliss—but how hot it is!
And the rock I’m sitting on grows harder every minute;
Still my fisher waits, trying various baits,
But the basket at his side, I see, has nothing in it.
Oh, it’s just the way to pass a July day,
Arcadian and sentimental, dreamy, idle, charming;
But how fierce the sunlight falls! and the way that insect crawls
Along my neck and down my back is really quite alarming.