JOHN

He's a boy,

And that's the long and ( chiefly ) the short of it,

And the point of it and the wonderful sport of it;

A two-year-old with a taste for a toy,

And two chubby fists to clutch it and grasp it,

And two fat arms to embrace it and clasp it;

And a short stout couple of sturdy legs

As hard and as smooth as ostrich eggs;

And a jolly round head, so fairly round

You could easily roll it,

Or take it and bowl it

With never a bump along the ground.

And, as to his cheeks, they're also fat —

I've seen them in ancient prints like that,

Where a wind-boy high

In a cloudy sky

Is puffing away for all he's worth,

Uprooting the trees

With a reckless breeze,

And strewing them over the patient earth,

Or raising a storm to wreck the ships

With the work of his lungs and cheeks and lips.

Take a look at his eyes; I put it to you,

Were ever two eyes more truly blue?

If you went and worried the whole world through

You'd never discover a bluer blue;

I doubt if you'd find a blue so true

In the coats and scarves of a Cambridge crew.

And his hair

Is as fair

As a pretty girl's,

But it's right for a boy with its crisp, short curls

All a-gleam, as he struts about

With a laugh and a shout,

To summon his sister-slaves to him

For his joyous Majesty's careless whim.

But now, as, after a stand, he budges,

And sets to work and solemnly trudges,

Out from a bush there springs full tilt

His four-legged playmate — and John is spilt.

She's a young dog and a strong dog

And a tall dog and a long dog,

A Danish lady of high degree,

Black coat, kind eye and a stride that's free.

And out she came

Like a burst of flame,

And John,

As he trudged and strutted

Sturdily on,

Was blindly butted,

And, all his dignity spent and gone,

On a patch of clover

Was tumbled over,

His two short legs having failed to score

In a sudden match against Lufra's four.

But we picked him up

And we brushed him down,

And he rated the pup

With a dreadful frown;

And then he laughed and he went and hugged her,

Seized her tail in his fist and tugged her,

And so, with a sister's hand to guide him,

Continued his march with the dog beside him.

And soon he waggles his way upstairs —

He does it alone, though he finds it steep.

He is stripped and gowned, and he says his prayers,

And he condescends

To admit his friends

To a levée before he goes to sleep.

He thrones it there

With a battered bear

And a tattered monkey to form his Court,

And, having come to the end of day,

Conceives that this is the time for play

And every possible kind of sport.

But at last, tucked in for the hundredth time,

He babbles a bit of nursery rhyme,

And on the bed

Droops his curly round head,

Gives one long sigh of unalloyed content

Over a day so well, so proudly spent,

Resigned at last to listen and obey,

And so begins to breathe his quiet night away.