Читать книгу Nine Little Goslings - Coolidge Susan - Страница 1

When nursery lamps are veiled, and nurse is singing

In accents low,

Timing her music to the cradle's swinging,

Now fast, now slow, —

Singing of Baby Bunting, soft and furry

In rabbit cloak,

Or rock-a-byed amid the toss and flurry

Of wind-swept oak;

Of Boy-Blue sleeping with his horn beside him,

Of my son John,

Who went to bed (let all good boys deride him)

With stockings on;

Of sweet Bo-Peep following her lambkins straying;

Of Dames in shoes;

Of cows, considerate, 'mid the Piper's playing,

Which tune to choose;

Of Gotham's wise men bowling o'er the billow,

Or him, less wise,

Who chose rough bramble-bushes for a pillow,

And scratched his eyes, —

It may be, while she sings, that through the portal

Soft footsteps glide,

And, all invisible to grown-up mortal,

At cradle side

Sits Mother Goose herself, the dear old mother,

And rocks and croons,

In tones which Baby hearkens, but no other,

Her old-new tunes!

I think it must be so, else why, years after,

Do we retrace

And mix with shadowy, recollected laughter

Thoughts of that face;

Seen, yet unseen, beaming across the ages,

Brimful of fun

And wit and wisdom, baffling all the sages

Under the sun?

A grown-up child has place still, which no other

May dare refuse;

I, grown up, bring this offering to our Mother,

To Mother Goose;

And, standing with the babies at that olden,

Immortal knee,

I seem to feel her smile, benign and golden,

Falling on me.