BABYHOOD.

Heigh-ho! Babyhood! Tell me where you linger:

Let's toddle home again, for we have gone astray;

Take this eager hand of mine and lead me by the finger

Back to the Lotus lands of the far-away.

Turn back the leaves of life; do n't read the story,—

Let's find the pictures, and fancy all the rest:—

We can fill the written pages with a brighter glory

Than Old Time, the story-teller, at his very best!

Turn to the brook, where the honeysuckle, tipping

O'er its vase of perfume spills it on the breeze,

And the bee and humming-bird in ecstacy are sipping

From the fairy flagons of the blooming locust trees.

Turn to the lane, where we used to “teeter-totter,”

Printing little foot-palms in the mellow mold,

Laughing at the lazy cattle wading in the water

Where the ripples dimple round the buttercups of gold:

Where the dusky turtle lies basking on the gravel

Of the sunny sandbar in the middle-tide,

And the ghostly dragonfly pauses in his travel

To rest like a blossom where the water-lily died.

Heigh-ho! Babyhood! Tell me where you linger:

Let's toddle home again, for we have gone astray;

Take this eager hand of mine and lead me by the finger

Back to the Lotus lands of the far-away.