THE LOST BOY
LITTLE Boy Careless has strewn his blocks
From end to end of the nursery;
He has broken the top of the gaudy box
That held sliced animals—My, Ah Me!
His wooden soldiers are seamed and scarred
From battle with him, and his jumping-jack
Is lodged half-way from a blow too hard,
Nor all of my coaxing will get him back.
Little Boy Careless has split his drum
And bent the tube of his screeching fife
Till all of its martial airs are dumb,
And the doll that squeaked has lost her life
From a mallet blow on her waxen head,
And none of her sister dolls knows or cares
How the sawdust in her is strewn and spread
From the bedroom door to the hall downstairs.
Little Boy Careless has gone away
And Big Boy Hopeful has come to me,
The toys that were scattered here yesterday
Are stored up there in the nursery.
The broken drum and the jumping-jack,
The waxen doll in her crib alone,
Nor Little Boy Careless will e’er come back
To scatter the toys by his years outgrown.
And ah, but the heart of me aches and cries
For the Little Boy Careless to come and play,
The light of the dawn in his big, brown eyes,
With the toys that are gathered and laid away.
The Big Boy Hopeful will come to pine
For the world out there and will yearn to go,
But the Little Boy Careless was mine, all mine,
And that is the reason I loved him so!
LINES TO A BABY GIRL
OH, she has such a way with her!
I stay with her
And play with her,
Her cheeks are round and dimpled and
Her eyes are Heaven’s blue;
My life is spent quite half with her,
I laugh with her
And chaff with her,
Till she looks up with laughing eyes,
And all she says is “Goo!”
Sometimes I try to walk with her,
I talk with her
And rock with her;
She knows some way my love for her
Is tender and is true.
And so I sit and speak with her
And seek with her
The cheek of her
To brush with little kisses and
Quite all she says is “Goo!”
She toddles in to share with me
My chair with me;
Her air with me
Is that of queen imperious,
My heart her subject true.
Upon the floor she lies with me
And tries with me
To rise with me
When romping time is over, and
She looks up and says “Goo!”
Oh, she is such a part of me,
The heart of me,
And art of me
Could not express my love for her,
So tender and so true;
She is the treasure blessed of me,
Heart’s guest of me,
The best of me,
This little baby girl of me
Who looks up and says “Goo!”