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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 sand-bar in the middle tide,
And the ghostly dragon-fly 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!
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