Love-Songs of Childhood | Page 4

goeth walking in his garden,?Around his tinkling feet the sunbeams play;?The posies they are good to him,?And bow them as they should to him,?As fareth he upon his kingly way;?And birdlings of the wood to him?Make music, gentle music, all the day,?When our babe he goeth walking in his garden.
When our babe he goeth swinging in his cradle,?Then the night it looketh ever sweetly down;?The little stars are kind to him,?The moon she hath a mind to him?And layeth on his head a golden crown;?And singeth then the wind to him?A song, the gentle song of Bethlem-town,?When our babe he goeth swinging in his cradle.
THE NIGHT WIND
Have you ever heard the wind go "Yooooo"??'T is a pitiful sound to hear!?It seems to chill you through and through?With a strange and speechless fear.?'T is the voice of the night that broods outside?When folk should be asleep,?And many and many's the time I've cried?To the darkness brooding far and wide?Over the land and the deep:?Whom do you want, O lonely night,?That you wail the long hours through?"?And the night would say in its ghostly way:
"Yoooooooo!?Yoooooooo!?Yoooooooo!"
My mother told me long ago?(When I was a little tad)?That when the night went wailing so,?Somebody had been bad;?And then, when I was snug in bed,?Whither I had been sent,?With the blankets pulled up round my head,?I'd think of what my mother'd said,?And wonder what boy she meant!?And "Who's been bad to-day?" I'd ask?Of the wind that hoarsely blew,?And the voice would say in its meaningful way:
"Yoooooooo!?Yoooooooo!?Yoooooooo!"
That this was true I must allow -?You'll not believe it, though!?Yes, though I'm quite a model now,?I was not always so.?And if you doubt what things I say,?Suppose you make the test;?Suppose, when you've been bad some day?And up to bed are sent away?From mother and the rest -?Suppose you ask, "Who has been bad?"?And then you'll hear what's true;?For the wind will moan in its ruefulest tone:
"Yoooooooo!?Yoooooooo!?Yoooooooo!"
KISSING TIME
'T is when the lark goes soaring?And the bee is at the bud,?When lightly dancing zephyrs?Sing over field and flood;?When all sweet things in nature?Seem joyfully achime -?'T is then I wake my darling,?For it is kissing time!
Go, pretty lark, a-soaring,?And suck your sweets, 0 bee;?Sing, 0 ye winds of summer,?Your songs to mine and me;?For with your song and rapture?Cometh the moment when?It's half-past kissing time?And time to kiss again!
So - so the days go fleeting?Like golden fancies free,?And every day that cometh?Is full of sweets for me;?And sweetest are those moments?My darling comes to climb?Into my lap to mind me?That it is kissing time.
Sometimes, maybe, he wanders?A heedless, aimless way -?Sometimes, maybe, he loiters?In pretty, prattling play;?But presently bethinks him?And hastens to me then,?For it's half-past kissing time?And time to kiss again!
JEST 'FORE CHRISTMAS
Father calls me William, sister calls me Will,?Mother calls me Willie, but the fellers call me Bill!?Mighty glad I ain't a girl - ruther be a boy,?Without them sashes, curls, an' things that's worn by Fauntleroy! Love to chawnk green apples an' go swimmin' in the lake -?Hate to take the castor-ile they give for bellyache!?'Most all the time, the whole year round, there ain't no flies on me, But jest 'fore Christmas I'm as good as I kin be!
Got a yeller dog named Sport, sick him on the cat;?First thing she knows she doesn't know where she is at!?Got a clipper sled, an' when us kids goes out to slide,?'Long comes the grocery cart, an' we all hook a ride!?But sometimes when the grocery man is worrited an' cross,?He reaches at us with his whip, an' larrups up his hoss,?An' then I laff an' holler, "Oh, ye never teched me!"?But jest 'fore Christmas I'm as good as I kin be!
Gran'ma says she hopes that when I git to be a man,?I'll be a missionarer like her oldest brother, Dan,?As was et up by the cannibuls that lives in Ceylon's Isle,?Where every prospeck pleases, an' only man is vile!?But gran'ma she has never been to see a Wild West show,?Nor read the Life of Daniel Boone, or else I guess she'd know That Buff'lo Bill an' cow-boys is good enough for me!?Excep' jest 'fore Christmas, when I'm good as I kin be!
And then old Sport he hangs around, so solemn-like an' still, His eyes they seem a-sayin': "What's the matter, little Bill?" The old cat sneaks down off her perch an' wonders what's become Of them two enemies of hern that used to make things hum!?But I am so perlite an' 'tend so earnestly to biz,?That mother says to father: "How improved our Willie is!"?But father, havin' been a boy hisself, suspicions me?When, jest 'fore Christmas, I'm as good as I kin be!
For Christmas, with its lots an' lots of candies, cakes, an' toys, Was made, they say, for proper kids an' not for naughty boys; So