Songs for Parents | Page 4

blossoms look like snow,?They're different, though.?Snow falls softly, but it brings?Noisy things:?Sleighs and bells, forts and fights,?Cosy nights.
But apple blossoms when they go,?White and slow,?Quiet all the orchard space,?Till the place?Hushed with falling sweetness seems?Filled with dreams.
Speculation
I wonder if God sits alone?Upon the highest mountain stone?To stir the clouds and drop the rain,?And then to pick it up again.
I wonder if he sends the brooks?Foaming from their distant nooks,?And, sitting there in robes of gray,?Turns rivers on at break of day.
Parade
The scarlet trumpet flowers are gay?And yet they never seem to play,?They never trumpet up the dawn?Nor blow retreat across the lawn.
But oh, to-day I heard a strain,?A happy, martial, quick refrain,?As down across the garden grass?I saw the marching flowers pass:
Gaudy phlox and flaunting rose,?Stiff and straight and on their toes,?And, blaring from the garden wall,?The trumpet flower led them all.
Flower Preferences
If I were a tiny fairy
With nothing else to do?But to wriggle into flowers
All the long day through,
I'd dance among the roses,
I'd take a stately walk,?Balancing precisely
On an Easter-lily stalk.
For play I'd choose the jonquils,
For swimming, poppy cups,?For jokes and tricks and tiny naps,
The Johnny-jump-ups!
But on some quiet evening,
I'd leave my fairy band,?And on a star-flower through the sky
I'd sail to fairyland.
Parental Advice
Who laid the egg that hatched the moon??Was it the earth, I wonder,?Was it the sun, the clouds, or rain,?Was it night or thunder?
If I were mother to the moon?I'd spank her every day?Until she learned to stay at home?And never run away!
Song for a Child Watching Clouds
I've watched the clouds by day and night,?Great fleecy ones all filled with light,?Gray beasts that steal across the sky,?And little fellows slipping by.
Sometimes they seem like sheep at play,?Sometimes when they are dull and gray?The pale sun seems a ship to me,?Sailing through a rolling sea;
And I've seen faces in them too,?Funny white men on the blue,?They look so many different ways,?And not one single cloudlet stays;
But on across the heavens they blow,?I often wonder where they go,?Now sometime, maybe when I die,?I, too, will wander through the sky.
Problem
If I were a violet I'd think it a shame?To be always so simple and modest and tame,?To be hidden away like a hermit or nun?While the hare-brained pink roses can dance in the sun!?But consider the naughty wild ways of the rose--?There must_ be _respectable flowers, I suppose!
Garden Musings
Why is the lily so stately and still??Why doesn't she dance like the gay daffodil??Why doesn't she blush like the rose or the pink,?Or, like mischievous pansy, indulge in a wink??Do you think it's because she is holier than they,?Or did God just decide he would make her that way?
My Garden
My garden was silly and stubborn;
I worked, but the weeds worked, too;?I dug and scraped and scrambled--
They hustled themselves and grew;
Now Ted's garden's fine and cleanly,
He has lettuce and roses and peas--?Oh, most probably plants are like children--
They only behave when they please!
Tracks
I wonder where the rabbits go?Who leave their tracks across the snow;?For when I follow to their den?The tracks always start out again.
Chanticleer
High and proud on the barnyard fence?Walks rooster in the morning.?He shakes his comb, he shakes his tail?And gives his daily warning.
"Get up, you lazy boys and girls,?It's time you should be dressing!"?I wonder if he keeps a clock,?Or if he's only guessing.
Rainbow
The rainbow comes across the hill,?It shines upon the sky, until?It frightens all the tears from rain,?And then it hides itself again.
Now when I'm very tired of play?I'll cross that rainbow bridge some day;?And while dear nurse and father scold,?I'll reach the end--and find the gold!
Windmill
The windmill stands up like a flower on the hill?With its petals a-whirling--they seldom stay still--?And its funny old voice creaking all the long day?As it scolds little breezes for running away.
Cat-Fish
The cat-fish with whiskers that lives in the brook,?Is an ugly old beast with the wickedest look.?I suppose there were mouse-fish one time in brook town?Till that ugly old cat-fish gulped all of them down.
Visiting
You and I shall travel far,?We'll pass the old earth by,?We'll ride the moon and drive a star?Across the evening sky.
We'll flash upon the milky way?To pay Dame Night a call--?But should we happen on old Day--?We'd fall and fall and fall.
Castles
I used to build me castles of moisty sand and shells,?And dream they were for princesses who wove me magic spells; But yesterday along the beach my fairy princess came--?And she's too big for castles--now isn't that a shame!
Parenthood
The birches that dance on the top of the hill?Are so slender and young that they cannot keep still,?They bend and they nod at each whiff of a breeze,?For you see they are still just the children of trees.
But the birches below in the valley are older,?They are calmer and straighter and taller and colder.?Perhaps when we've grown up as solemn and grave,?We, too, will have