Oh, girls are girls, and boys are boys,
And have been so since Abel’s birth,
And shall be so till dolls and toys
Are with the children swept from earth.
The selfsame sport that crowns the day
Of many a Syrian shepherd’s son,
Beguiles the little lads at play
By night in stately Babylon.
I hear their voices in the street,
Yet ’tis so different now from then!
Come, brother! from your winding-sheet,
And let us two be boys again!
LITTLE BOY BLUE
THE little toy dog is covered with dust,
But sturdy and stanch he stands;
And the little toy soldier is red with rust,
And his musket molds in his hands.
Time was when the little toy dog was new,
And the soldier was passing fair;
And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue
Kissed them and put them there.
“Now, don’t you go till I come,” he said,
“And don’t you make any noise!”
So, toddling off to his trundle-bed,
He dreamt of the pretty toys;
And, as he was dreaming, an angel song
Awakened our Little Boy Blue—
Oh! the years are many, the years are long,
But the little toy friends are true!
Aye, faithful to Little Boy Blue they stand,
Each in the same old place—
Awaiting the touch of a little hand,
The smile of a little face;
And they wonder, as waiting the long years through
In the dust of that little chair,
What has become of our Little Boy Blue,
Since he kissed them and put them there.
FATHER’S LETTER
I’M going to write a letter to our oldest boy who went
Out West last spring to practise law and run for president;
I’ll tell him all the gossip I guess he’d like to hear,
For he hasn’t seen the home-folks for going on a year!
Most generally it’s Marthy does the writing, but as she
Is suffering with a felon, why, the job devolves on me—
So, when the supper things are done and put away to-night,
I’ll draw my boots and shed my coat and settle down to write.
I’ll tell him crops are looking up, with prospects big for corn,
That, fooling with the barnyard gate, the off-ox hurt his horn;
That the Templar lodge is doing well—Tim Bennett joined last week
When the prohibition candidate for Congress came to speak;
That the old gray woodchuck’s living still down in the pasture-lot,
A-wondering what’s become of little William, like as not!
Oh, yes, there’s lots of pleasant things and no bad news to tell,
Except that old Bill Graves was sick, but now he’s up and well.