love,?And love's fond service and reward thereof,?Restore her thus, O blessed Memory!--?Throned in her rocking-chair, and on her knee?Her sewing--her workbasket on the floor?Beside her,--Springtime through the open door?Balmily stealing in and all about?The room; the bees' dim hum, and the far shout?And laughter of the children at their play,?And neighbor-children from across the way?Calling in gleeful challenge--save alone?One boy whose voice sends back no answering tone--?The boy, prone on the floor, above a book?Of pictures, with a rapt, ecstatic look--?Even as the mother's, by the selfsame spell,?Is lifted, with a light ineffable--?As though her senses caught no mortal cry,?But heard, instead, some poem going by.
The Child-heart is so strange a little thing--?So mild--so timorously shy and small.--?When grown-up hearts throb, it goes scampering?Behind the wall, nor dares peer out at all!--
It is the veriest mouse
That hides in any house--
So wild a little thing is any Child-heart!
_Child-heart!--mild heart!--
Ho, my little wild heart!--
Come up here to me out o' the dark,
Or let me come to you!_
So lorn at times the Child-heart needs must be.?With never one maturer heart for friend?And comrade, whose tear-ripened sympathy?And love might lend it comfort to the end,--
Whose yearnings, aches and stings.
Over poor little things
Were pitiful as ever any Child-heart.
_Child-heart!--mild heart!--
Ho, my little wild heart!--
Come up here to me out o' the dark,
Or let me come to you!_
Times, too, the little Child-heart must be glad--?Being so young, nor knowing, as we know.?The fact from fantasy, the good from bad,?The joy from woe, the--all that hurts us so!
What wonder then that thus
It hides away from us?--
So weak a little thing is any Child-heart!
_Child-heart!--mild heart!--
Ho, my little wild heart!--
Come up here to me out o' the dark,
Or let me come to you!_
Nay, little Child-heart, you have never need?To fear us,--we are weaker far than you--?Tis we who should be fearful--we indeed?Should hide us, too, as darkly as you do,--
Safe, as yourself, withdrawn,
Hearing the World roar on
Too willful, woful, awful for the Child-heart!
_Child-heart!--mild heart!--
Ho, my little wild heart!--
Come up here to me out o' the dark,
Or let me come to you!_
The clock chats on
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