Snatched to her breast her smiling love
And sang his soul to dreams away.
Oh, mother-love, that knows no guile,
That's deaf to flatt'ry, blind to art,
A dimpled hand hath wooed thy smile—
A baby's cooing touched thy heart.
Lest my readers should conclude from these early specimens of Field's fondness for lilting lullabies that the gentler sex and "mother love" blinded him to the manly attractions and true worth of his own sex, let the following never-to-be-forgotten ode to the waistcoat of the papa of the hero of the two preceding songs bear witness. Mr. Davis has been a manager of first-class theatres and theatrical companies for a score of years, and there are thousands to testify that in the rhymes that follow Field has done no more than justice to the amazing "confections" in wearing apparel he affected in the days when we were boys together:
Of waistcoats there are divers kinds, from those severely chaste