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; don'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.