I
To Willie and Henrietta If two may read aright These rhymes of old delight And house and garden play,You too,my cousins,and you only,may.
You in a garden green With me were king and queen,Were hunter,soldier,tar,And all the thousand things that children are.
Now in the elders'seat We rest with quiet feet,And from the window-bay We watch the children,our successors,play.
"Time was,"the golden head Irrevocably said;
But time which one can bind,While flowing fast away,leaves love behind.
II
To My Mother You too,my mother,read my rhymes For love of unforgotten times,And you may chance to hear once more The little feet along the floor.
III
To Auntie "Chief of our aunts"——not only I,But all your dozen of nurselings cry——
"What did the other children do?
And what were childhood,wanting you?"
IV
To Minnie The red room with the giant bed Where none but elders laid their head;
The little room where you and I
Did for awhile together lie And,simple,suitor,Iyour hand In decent marriage did demand;
The great day nursery,best of all,With pictures pasted on the wall And leaves upon the blind——
Apleasant room wherein to wake And hear the leafy garden shake And rustle in the wind——
And pleasant there to lie in bed And see the pictures overhead——
The wars about Sebastopol,The grinning guns along the wall,The daring escalade,The plunging ships,the bleating sheep,The happy children ankle-deep And laughing as they wade:
All these are vanished clean away,And the old manse is changed to-day;
It wears an altered face And shields a stranger race.