DEDICATION
TO OLD FRIENDS WITH YOUNG HEARTS AND YOUNG HEARTS GROWING OLD.
Dear Friends of our youth, should you happen to look
At the curious things in this curious book,
And should you, with quizzical countenance, ask
The how and the why of our curious task—
Now, some one has said, in a moment of spleen,
We cannot make pictures of what we've not seen;
But such an assertion deserves only scorn,
For the shape of the Gobolink never was born.
He comes like the marvelous mimes of our dreams,
When one has been supping on salads and creams,
And curious changes of vision take place—
The horse may appear with an elephant face—
The goat with a cane, and the goose with a hat—
Six legs on the dog, and two tails on the cat;
We never can tell, though we're sorely perplexed,
What shape will be shown us, or what will come next;
And these are the things that our Gobolinks do—
Dear friends, and dear children, we give them to you.