Part 2
_From "Poems here at Home." Copyright, 1893-1898. Used by permission of the publishers, The Bobbs-Merrill Company._
APRIL FOURTH
The first train leaves at six P.M. For the land where the poppy blows, The mother dear is the engineer, And the passenger laughs and crows; The palace car is the mother's arms, The whistle a low sweet strain, And the passenger winks and nods and blinks And goes to sleep on the train. _Edgar Wade Abbott_
APRIL FIFTH
In the house of too-much-trouble Lived a lonely little boy; He was eager for a playmate, He was hungry for a toy. But 'twas always too much bother, Too much dirt and too much noise: For the house of too-much-trouble Wasn't meant for little boys. _Albert Bigelow Paine_
APRIL SIXTH
I long for every childish, loving word; And for thy little footsteps, fairy light, That hither, thither moved and ever stirred My heart with them to gladness infinite. _Carmen Sylva_
APRIL SEVENTH
A laugh of innocence and joy Resounds like music of the fairest grace, And gladly turning from the world's annoy, I gaze upon a little radiant face And bless internally the merry boy Who makes a "son-shine in a shady place." _Hood_
APRIL EIGHTH
I had a little daughter And she was given to me To lead me gently backward To the Heavenly Father's knee. _Lowell_
APRIL NINTH
Did any one ever tell you To "stop makin' such a noise," When you wuz a-playin' Injun, An' war-whoopin' with the boys? Did any one never tell you Your manners wuz loud and bold? Then I guess you are one of the grown-ups And not a boy nine years old. _Exchange_
APRIL TENTH
Let us call to mind the years before our little daughter was born. We are now in the same condition as then, except that the time she was with us is to be counted as an added blessing. Let us not ungratefully accuse fortune for what was given us because we could not also have all that was desired. We should not be like misers who never enjoy what they have but only bewail what they lose. _Plutarch_
APRIL ELEVENTH
And I, for one, would much rather; If I could merit so sweet a thing, Be the poet of little children Than the laureate of a King. _Lucy Larcom_
APRIL TWELFTH
Ah! Child, what are we, that our ears Should hear you singing on your way, Should have this happiness? _Swinburne_
APRIL THIRTEENTH
Speak gently to the young, For they will have enough to bear; Pass through life as best they may, 'T is full of anxious care. _David Bates_
APRIL FOURTEENTH
My Mother's voice! how often creeps Its cadence on my lonely hours! Like healing sent on wings of sleep, Or dew to the unconscious flowers. I can forget her melting prayer While leaping pulses madly fly, But in the still unbroken air Her gentle tone comes stealing by, And years and sin and manhood flee And leave me at my mother's knee. _N. P. Willis_
APRIL FIFTEENTH
And then her heart would warm with hope, perhaps, of what might be to come, of the overwhelming possibilities--how many of them, to her, lay in the warm clasp of the child's hand that came pushing into hers! _Anne Thackeray Ritchie_
APRIL SIXTEENTH
The barb in the arrow of childhood's suffering is this: its intense loneliness, its intense ignorance. _Olive Schreiner_
APRIL SEVENTEENTH
Like happy children in their play, Whose hearts run over into song. _Lowell_
APRIL EIGHTEENTH
Ah! what would the world be to us If the children were no more? We should dread the desert behind us Worse than the dark before. _Longfellow_
APRIL NINETEENTH
Who can tell what a baby thinks? Who can follow the gossamer links By which the manikin feels his way Out from the shore of the great unknown, Blind and wailing and alone, Into the light of day? _J. G. Holland_
APRIL TWENTIETH
Dear little face, that lies in calm content Within the gracious hollow that God made In every human shoulder, where he meant Some tired head for comfort should be laid. _Celia Thaxter_
APRIL TWENTY-FIRST
This three-fold heaven, which you also bear within you, shines out on you through your child's eyes. _Froebel_
APRIL TWENTY-SECOND
Dance little child, oh dance! While sweet the wild birds sing, And flowers bloom fair, and every glance Of sunshine tells of Spring. Oh! bloom and sing and smile Child, bird and flower and make The sad old world forget awhile, Its sorrow for your sake. _Celia Thaxter_
APRIL TWENTY-THIRD
If the golden-crested wren Were a nightingale, why, then Something seen and heard of men Might be half as sweet as when Laughs a child of seven. _Swinburne_
APRIL TWENTY-FOURTH
O little ones whom I have found Among earth's green paths playing, Though listening far behind, around, There comes to me no sweeter sound Than words I hear you saying. _Lucy Larcom_
APRIL TWENTY-FIFTH
A child sees what we are, behind what we wish to be. _Amiel_
APRIL TWENTY-SIXTH
Dear Child! how radiant on thy Mother's knee, With merry-making eyes and jocund smiles, Thou gazest at the painted tiles. _Longfellow_
APRIL TWENTY-SEVENTH
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The soul that rises with us, our life's star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar; Not in entire forgetfulness And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home. _Wordsworth_
APRIL TWENTY-EIGHTH
Happy hearts and happy faces, Happy play in grassy places, That was how, in ancient ages, Children grew to kings and sages. _Robert Louis Stevenson_
APRIL TWENTY-NINTH
That wide-gazing calm which makes us older human beings, with our inward turmoil, feel a certain awe in the presence of a little child, such as we feel before some quiet majesty or beauty in the earth or sky. _George Eliot_
APRIL THIRTIETH
Her, by her smile, how soon the stranger knows, How soon by his the glad discovery shows, As to her lips she lifts the lovely boy, What answering looks of sympathy and joy! He walks, he speaks. In many a broken word His wants, his wishes and his griefs are heard. And ever, ever to her lap he flies, When rosy sleep comes on with sweet surprise. _Samuel Rogers_
*MAY*
MAY FIRST
The child whose face illumes our way, Whose voice lifts up the heart that hears, Whose hand is as the hand of May. _Swinburne_
MAY SECOND
Baby's skies are mother's eyes, Mother's eyes and smiles together Make the Baby's pleasant weather. _Selected_
MAY THIRD
Oh, when I was a tiny boy My days and nights were full of joy _Hood_
MAY FOURTH
Sweet babe, in thy face Soft desires I can trace, Secret joys and secret smiles, Little pretty infant wiles. _William Blake_
MAY FIFTH
For Childhood, is a tender thing, easily wrought into any shape. _Plutarch_
MAY SIXTH
The gilded evenings calm and late When weary children homeward run. _William Allingham_
MAY SEVENTH
Make your children happy in their youth; let distinction come to them, if it will, after well-spent years but let them now break and eat the bread of Heaven with gladness and singleness of heart and send portions to them for whom nothing is prepared; and so Heaven send you its grace before meat and after it. _Ruskin_
MAY EIGHTH
The babe by its mother Lies bathed in joy, Glide its hours uncounted, The sun is its toy; Shines the peace of all its being, Without cloud, in its eyes, And the sun of the world In soft miniature lies. _Emerson_
MAY NINTH
In those days life was a simple matter to the children; their days and their legs lengthened together. _Anne Thackeray Ritchie_
MAY TENTH
Timely blossom, infant fair, Fondling of a happy pair, Every morn and every night Their solicitous delight, Sleeping, waking, still at ease, Pleasing without skill to please. _Ambrose Phillips_
MAY ELEVENTH
Then the face of a mother looks back, through the mist Of the tears that are welling; and, lucent with light, I see the dear smile of the lips I have kissed As she knelt by my cradle at morning and night; And my arms are outheld with a yearning too wild For any but God in His love to inspire, As she pleads at the foot of His throne for her child-- As I sit in the silence and gaze in the fire. _James Whitcomb Riley_
_From "Rhymes of Childhood." Copyright, 1890-1898. Used by special permission of the publishers, The Bobbs-Merritt Company._
MAY TWELFTH
A child's kiss set on thy sighing lips shall make thee glad. _Mrs. Browning_
MAY THIRTEENTH
I can not say, and I will not say That he is dead.--He is just away! With a cheery smile and a wave of the hand, He has wandered into an unknown land, And left us dreaming how very fair It must be since he lingers there. _James Whitcomb Riley_
_From "Afterwhiles." Copyright, 1903. Used by permission of the publishers, The Bobbs-Merrill Company._
MAY FOURTEENTH
"Rock-a-bye, baby, up in the tree top!" Mother his blanket is spinning; And a light little rustle that never will stop Breezes and boughs are beginning, Rock-a-bye, baby, swinging so high! Rock-a-bye. _Lucy Larcom_
MAY FIFTEENTH
God's hand had taken away the seal That held the portals of her speech; And oft she said a few strange words Whose meaning lay beyond our reach _Thomas Bailey Aldrich_
MAY SIXTEENTH
Happy the child who is suffered to be and content to be what God meant it to be; a child while childhood lasts. _Robertson_
MAY SEVENTEENTH
When first thy infant littleness I folded in my fond caress, The greatest proof of happiness Was this I wept. _Hood_
MAY EIGHTEENTH
His mother's conscious heart o'erflows with joy. _Homer's Iliad_
MAY NINETEENTH
For the pure clean wit of a sweet young babe is like the newest wax, most able to receive the best and fairest printing. _Roger Ascham_
MAY TWENTIETH
At eve the babes with angels converse hold. _Victor Hugo_
MAY TWENTY-FIRST
Ilka body smiled that met her, Nane were glad that said farewell; Never was a blither, better, Bonnier bairn frae croon to heel! _MacLeod_
MAY TWENTY-SECOND
His father's counterfeit, And his face the index be Of his mother's chastity. _Catullus_
MAY TWENTY-THIRD
And, rosy from the noonday sleep, Would bear thee to admiring kin, And all thy pretty looks would keep My heart within. _Jean Ingelow_
MAY TWENTY-FOURTH
I long to feel thy little arms embrace, Thy silver-sounding voice to hear, I long for thy warm kisses on my face, And for thy birdlike carol, blythe and clear. _Carmen Sylva_
MAY TWENTY-FIFTH
All holy influences dwell within The breast of childhood; instincts fresh from God Inspire it, ere the heart beneath the rod Of grief hath bled, or caught the plague of sin. _Sir Aubrey de Vere_
MAY TWENTY-SIXTH
The mother represents goodness, providence, law, that is to say, the divinity, under that form of it which is accessible to childhood. _Amiel_
MAY TWENTY-SEVENTH
Earth's creeds may be seventy times seven And blood have defiled each creed; If, of such is the Kingdom of Heaven, It must be Heaven indeed. _Swinburne_
MAY TWENTY-EIGHTH
No song quite worth a young child's ears Broke ever even from birds in May. _Swinburne_
MAY TWENTY-NINTH
And remain through all bewildering, Innocent and honest children. _Robert Louis Stevenson_
MAY THIRTIETH
Before life's sweetest mystery still The heart in reverence kneels; The wonder of the primal birth The latest mother feels. _Whittier_
MAY THIRTY-FIRST
O, The days gone by! O, the days gone by! The music of the laughing lip, the luster of the eye; The childish faith in fairies, and Aladdin's magic ring-- The simple, soul-reposing, glad belief in every thing.-- When life was like a story, holding neither sob nor sigh, In the golden, olden glory of the days gone by. _James Whitcomb Riley_
_"Rhymes of Childhood." Copyright, 1890-1898. Used by permission of the publishers, The Bobbs-Merrill Company._
*JUNE*
JUNE FIRST
Would ye learn the way to Laughtertown, Oh, ye who have lost the way? Would ye have young hearts, though your hair be gray? Go learn from a little child each day; Go serve his wants and play his play, And catch the lilt of his laughter gay, And follow his dancing feet as they stray, For he knows the road to Laughtertown Oh, ye who have lost the way! _Katherine D. Blake_
JUNE SECOND
What school of learning or of moral endeavor depends on its teacher more than the home upon the mother. _Donald G. Mitchell_
JUNE THIRD
What price could pay with earth's whole weight of gold, One least flushed roseleaf's fold Of all this dimpling store of smiles that shine From each warm curve and line? _Swinburne_
JUNE FOURTH
Sometimes when I bin bad An' Pa "correcks" me, nen An' Uncle Sidney he comes here I'm allus good again; Cause Uncle Sidney says, An' takes me up an' smiles, The goodest mens they is ain't good As baddest little childs. _James Whitcomb Riley_
_"Rhymes of Childhood." Copyright, 1890-1898. Used by special permission of the publishers, The Bobbs-Merrill Company._
JUNE FIFTH
Since then God has willed that children should be to us in the place of preceptors, we judge that we owe to them the most diligent attention. _Comenius_
JUNE SIXTH
He was so sweet, that oft his mother said, O, child, how was it that I dwelt content Before thou camest? _Jean Ingelow_
JUNE SEVENTH
Thrice happy state again to be The trusting infant on the knee! Who lets his rosy fingers play About his Mother's neck, and knows Nothing beyond his Mother's eyes; They comfort him by night and day, They light his little life alway. _Tennyson_
JUNE EIGHTH
I see in every child the possibility of a perfect man. _Froebel_
JUNE NINTH
Where indeed can the modest and earnest virtue of a woman tell a stronger story of its worth than upon the dawning habit of a child? _Donald G. Mitchell_
JUNE TENTH
The expectant wee-things, toddlin' stacher through To meet their Dad, wi' flichterin' noise an' glee, His wee-bit Ingle blinkin' bonnily, His clean hearth-stone, his thrifty wifie's smile, The lispin' infant prattling on his knee, Does a' his weary carking cares beguile, An' makes him quite forget his labor and his toil. _Robert Burns_
JUNE ELEVENTH
To feel sudden, at a wink, Some dear child we used to scold, Praise, love both ways, kiss and tease, Teach and tumble as our own, All its curls about our knees, Rise up suddenly full-grown. _Mrs. Browning_
JUNE TWELFTH
I thought a child was given to sanctify a woman. _Mrs. Browning_
JUNE THIRTEENTH
Under the roof-tree of his home the boy feels safe; and where, in the whole realm of life, with its bitter toils and bitter temptations, will he feel safe again? _Donald G. Mitchell_
JUNE FOURTEENTH
The heart which plays in life its part, With love elate, with loss forlorn, Is still, through all, the child's pure heart My Mother gave when I was born. _Sully-Prudhomme_
JUNE FIFTEENTH
The hyacinthine boy, for whom Morn well might break and April bloom. _Emerson_
JUNE SIXTEENTH
And the mother spoils all her scolding with a perfect shower of kisses. _Donald G. Mitchell_
JUNE SEVENTEENTH
But not a child to kiss his lips, Well-a-day! And that's a difference sad to see Betwixt my lord the king and me. _Charles Mackay_
JUNE EIGHTEENTH
There falls not from the height of day, When sunlight speaks and silence hears, So sweet a psalm as children play And sing each hour of all their years, Each moment of their lovely way, And know not how it thrills our ears. _Swinburne_
JUNE NINETEENTH
But all of the things that belong to the day Cuddle to sleep to be out of her way; And flowers and children close their eyes Till up in the morning the sun shall arise. _Robert Louis Stevenson_
JUNE TWENTIETH
O prayer of childhood! Simple, innocent; O infant slumbers! Peaceful, pure and light; O happy worship! Ever gay with smiles, Meet prelude to the harmonies of night; As birds beneath the wing enfold their head, Nestled in prayer, the infant seeks its bed. _Victor Hugo_
JUNE TWENTY-FIRST
In the little childish heart below All the sweetness seemed to grow and grow, And shine out in happy overflow From her blue, bright eyes. _Westwood_
JUNE TWENTY-SECOND
And when she saw her tender little babe, She felt how much the happy days of life Outweigh the sorrowful. _Jean Ingelow_
JUNE TWENTY-THIRD
Between tears and smiles, the year, like the child, struggles into warmth and life. _Donald G. Mitchell_
JUNE TWENTY-FOURTH
The months that touch, with added grace, This little prattler at my knee, In whose arch eye and speaking face New meaning every hour I see. _Bryant_
_Reprinted from Bryant's Complete Poetical Works by permission of D. Appleton & Co._
JUNE TWENTY-FIFTH
Come to me, O ye children! And whisper in my ear What the birds and the winds are singing In your sunny atmosphere. _Longfellow_
JUNE TWENTY-SIXTH
The adorable, sweet, living, marvellous, Strange light that lightens us Who gaze, desertless of such grace, Full in a babe's warm face. _Swinburne_
JUNE TWENTY-SEVENTH
Do not think the youth has no force because he can not speak to you and me. _Emerson_
JUNE TWENTY-EIGHTH
Birds in the night, that softly call, Winds in the night, that strangely sigh, Come to me, help me, one and all, And murmur baby's lullaby. _Lionel H. Lewin_
JUNE TWENTY-NINTH
'Tis grand to be six years old, dear, With pence in a money box, To ride on a wooden horse, dear, And leave off baby socks. _F. E. Weatherly_
JUNE THIRTIETH
Infancy conforms to nobody; all conform to it, so that one babe commonly makes four or five out of the adults who prattle and play to it. _Emerson_
*JULY*
JULY FIRST
A little child, a limber elf, Singing, dancing to itself, A fairy thing with rosy cheeks, That always finds and never seeks, Makes such a vision to my sight As fills a father's eye with light. _S. T. Coleridge_
JULY SECOND
Bright-featured as the July sun Her little face still played in, And splendors, with her birth begun, Had had no time for fading. _Mrs. Browning_
JULY THIRD
The evening star doth o'er thee peep, To watch thy slumber bright; My little child, now go to sleep Safe in God's loving sight. _George Cooper_
JULY FOURTH
God promises the children heavenly play, And blooms in meadows queenly. _Ingemann_
JULY FIFTH
But still I feel that His embrace Slides down by thrills through all things made, Through sight and sound of every place; As if my tender mother laid, On my shut lids her kisses pressure: Half waking me at night; and said: "Who kissed you through the dark, dear guesser?" _Mrs. Browning_
JULY SIXTH
Even happier than the young wife who feels for the first time consciousness of her motherhood. _Chateaubriand_
JULY SEVENTH
And the least of us all that love him May take, for a moment, part With Angels around and above him, And I find place in his heart. _Swinburne_
JULY EIGHTH
The streamlet murmurs on its way; Dew falls at set of sun; The birds grow still at hush of day, So sleep, my little one. _George Cooper_
JULY NINTH
The child was happy; Like a spirit of the air she moved, Wayward, yet, by all who knew her, For her tender heart beloved. _Wordsworth_
JULY TENTH
My mother's voice, so forgotten yet so familiar, so unutterably dear! _George Du Maurier_
JULY ELEVENTH
But were another childhood-world my share, I would be born a little sister there. _George Eliot_
JULY TWELFTH
With what a look of proud command Thou shakest, in thy little hand, The coral rattle, with its silver bells, Making a merry tune. _Longfellow_
JULY THIRTEENTH
Let childhood's radiant mist the free child yet enfold. _Hemans_
JULY FOURTEENTH
Be it, therefore, O mother, your sacred duty to make your darling early feel the working of both the outer and the inner light. _Froebel_
JULY FIFTEENTH
We do not know How he may soften at the sight of the child: The silence often of pure innocence Persuades when speaking fails. _Shakespeare_
JULY SIXTEENTH
Yet nothing is so radiant and so fair As ---- To see the light of babes about the house. _Euripides_
JULY SEVENTEENTH
Through the gladness of little children Are the frostiest lives kept warm. _Lucy Larcom_
JULY EIGHTEENTH
As on the father's care-worn cheek The ringlets of his child; The golden mingling with the gray, And stealing half its snows away. _Holmes_
JULY NINETEENTH
There's one angel belongs to you on earth and that's your mother. _Auerbach_
JULY TWENTIETH
Love that lives and stands up recreated, Then when life has ebbed and anguish fled, Love more strong than death or all things fated, Child's and mother's, lit by love and led. _Swinburne_
JULY TWENTY-FIRST
Let us live with our children; so shall their lives bring peace and joy to us; so shall we begin to be and to become wise. _Froebel_
JULY TWENTY-SECOND
And thou, my boy, that silent at my knee, Dost lift to mine thy soft, dark, earnest eyes, Filled with the love of childhood, which I see, Pure through its depths, a thing without disguise. _Hemans_
JULY TWENTY-THIRD
Turning to mirth all things of earth, As only boyhood can. _Hood_
JULY TWENTY-FOURTH
A tiny thing, Whom, when it slept, the lovely mother nursed With reverent love; whom, when it woke she fed And wondered at, and lost herself in long Rapture of watching and contentment deep. _Jean Ingelow_
JULY TWENTY-FIFTH
But more sweet Shone lower the loveliest lamp for earthly feet, The light of little children and their love. _Swinburne_
JULY TWENTY-SIXTH
Full often it falls out, by fortune from God, That a man and a maid may marry in this world, Find cheer in the child whom they nourish and care for Tenderly tend it until the time comes, Beyond the first years, when, the young limbs increasing, Grown firm with life's fulness, are formed for their work; Fond father and mother so guide it and feed it, Give gifts to it, clothe it: God only can know What lot to its latter days life has to bring. _Anglo-Saxon Poem_
JULY TWENTY-SEVENTH
But children holds he dearest of the dear. _Ingemann_
JULY TWENTY-EIGHTH