Lil

“ For you passed in the night, Young Fellow My Lad,
And you proved in the cruel test
Of the screaming shell and the battle hell
That my boy was one of the best.
"So you'll live, you'll live, Young Fellow My Lad,
In the gleam of the evening star,
In the wood-note wild and the laugh of the child,
In all sweet things that are.
And you'll never die, my wonderful boy,
While life is noble and true;
For all our beauty and hope and joy
We will owe to our lads like you." ”

“ It is because of this curious presentiment of mine that I write down for thee, my baby—my baby Paul—this story of thy father and thy mother, and the great love that gave thee to the world. It is but right, before thou comest into thy kingdom, that thou shouldst know—thou and thou alone—the secret of thy birth, that thou mayst carry with thee into the big world thy birthright—the sweetness of a supreme love. ”

“ Holy Infant so tender and mild,
Sleep in heavenly peace,
Sleep in heavenly peace,
Silent night, holy night,
Darkness, flies and all is light;
Shepherds hear the angels sing:
'Alleluia! hail the King! ”

“ Then to thy glorious Source, though, babe, wast borne.
Dear infant angel, safe in joy and God!
Babe of fair promise, child of fondest prayer!
Hail, rescued spirit! painful is the rod;
But never will we mourn that thou art there.
Bright gem, we would not tear thee from thy crown,
Nor bid thy harp, sweet seraph, silent lie;
Stay in thy mansion, infant, still our own,
Never to grieve again, or fear, or die.
Short was thy pilgrim path, a sunny hour;
Life was to thee too sweet a boon to last. ”

“ There is a pretty picture of the royal infant—a beautiful buxom child—asleep in his mother's lap; who turns round and holds a finger to her lip, as if she would bid the courtiers around respect the baby's slumbers. ”

“ They called so loudly that the still air of that autumn morning was strangely startled, and the old woodchuck in the pasture way off yonder heard the echoes and wondered.
"Little boy! little boy!" they called, "why are you sleeping? Why are you sleeping, little boy?"
Call on, dear voices! but the little boy will never hear. The dimpled hands that caressed you are indeed folded upon his breast; the lips that kissed your honest faces are sealed; the baby voice that sang your playtime songs with you is hushed, and all about him is the fragrance and the beauty of flowers. ”

“ The lives of the children of the East are surrounded by a number of time-honoured rites and ceremonies of an imposing but superstitious character. The infant is a priceless gift from the beneficent gods, and its life must be ordered in accordance with the curious superstitions invented of old by the legendary deities of its forefathers. The infant is at once a source of pride, for it is a mark of heavenly favour, and of hope, for it shall, if good luck befall it, hand down its father's name unto another and a later generation. ”

“ Whence that dimpled foot and hand,
Baby mine?
Came they here at love's command,
Baby mine?
Or did angels, in their flight,
Drop this little blossom white
On the stream of time one night,
Baby mine?
Dimples guard thy crimson lips,
Baby mine;
Prints of fairy finger-tips,
Baby mine.
Now the shade of angel wings
Sweet repose upon thee brings,—
Silken soft thy slumberings,
Baby mine.
[Pg 54]
LULLABY.
Rock-a-by, hush-a-by, baby, my dear,
Nothing can harm you, for mother is near.
The journey is short, and the stars twinkle bright
O'er your path into Byloland, baby, good-night. ”

“ Perchance in the gathering night, With slow and weary feet, By the light of Southern stars, He paces his lonely beat. Does he think of the mother's heart That will never cease to yearn, As only a mother's can, For her absent boy's return? Oh, where is my boy to-night? I cannot answer where, But I know, wherever he is, He is under our Father's care. May He guard, and guide, and bless My boy, wherever he be, And bring him back at length To bless and to comfort me. May God bless all our boys By the camp-fire's ruddy glow, Or when in the deadly fight They front the embattled foe ”

“ For when the infant first wakes to consciousness, and commences its converse with the world, the first ray of knowledge, and the earliest of its discriminations, beam from a mother’s eye; and the emotions of its little heart receive their modulation from the melody of a mother’s voice. ”

“ May bless an infant's sleeping eye?
[Pg 284] What brighter throne can brightness find
To reign on than an infant's mind,
Ere sin destroy, or error dim,
The glory of the Seraphim?
But now thy changing smiles express
Intelligible happiness.
I feel my soul thy soul partake.
What grief! if thou should'st now awake!
With infants happy as thyself
I see thee bound, a playful elf:
I see thou art a darling child
Among thy playmates, bold and wild.
They love thee well ”

“ With Arcady for judge great Pan himself
Should own him foiled, and from the field retire.
Begin to greet thy mother with a smile,
O baby-boy! ten months of weariness
For thee she bore: O baby-boy, begin! ”

“ Still the seed sown in early time
Will not be wholly cast away.
The infant prayer, the infant hymn,
Within the darkened soul will rise,
When age's weary eye is dim,
And the grave's shadow round us lies. ”

“ Be still, my babe; sweet baby, sleep. While thus thy lullaby I sing, For thee great blessings ripening be; Thine Eldest Brother is a king, And hath a kingdom bought for thee. Sweet baby, then forbear to weep; Be still, my babe; sweet baby, sleep. Sweet baby, sleep, and nothing fear; For whosoever thee offends By thy protector threatened are, And God and angels are thy friends. Sweet baby, then forbear to weep; Be still, my babe; sweet baby, sleep. When God with us was dwelling here, In little babes He took delight; Such innocents as thou, my dear, Are ever precious in His sight. ”

“ THE LITTLE BOY FOUND The little boy lost in the lonely fen,
Led by the wandering light,
Began to cry, but God, ever nigh,
Appeared like his father, in white.
He kissed the child, and by the hand led,
And to his mother brought,
Who in sorrow pale, through the lonely dale,
Her little boy weeping sought.
LAUGHING SONG When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy,
And the dimpling stream runs laughing by;
When the air does laugh with our merry wit,
And the green hill laughs with the noise of it ”

“ The lad that in my dreams I see;
No tempter's voice could make you fall.
Ah, lad, my lad, your frank, free smile
Has cheered me many a weary mile;
And in your face, e'en in my dreams,
Potent of future manhood beams,—
Manhood that lives above the small;
Manhood all pure and good and clean,
That scorns the base, the vile, the mean,
That hears and answers duty's call
And lad, my lad, so strong and true,
This is the prayer I pray for you:
Lord, take my boy, and guide his life
Through all the pitfalls of the strife ”

“ One can truly say, “Like baby, like papa.” Our life is the threshold of his. It is with our eyes that he has first seen.
Profit, young fathers, by the first moments of candor on the part of your dear baby, seek to enter his heart when this little heart opens, and establish yourself in it so thoroughly, that at the moment when the child is able to judge you, he will love you too well to be severe or to cease loving. Win his, affection, it is worth the trouble. ”

“ ONCE upon a time the Lion, King of all the animals, became the father of a son. As the young Lion Prince grew older, the King began to ask himself which of the animals he could trust to teach his son how to become a good and wise King. ”

“ By my own son at last!
He trots his treason to and fro,
As only babies can,
And says he'll be his mamma's beau
When he's a "great, big man"!
You stingy boy! you've always had
A share in mamma's heart. ”

“ But on the other hand, the father, from his distance, supports, protects, nourishes his child, and it is ultimately on the remote but powerful father-love that the infant rests, in a rest which is beyond mother-love. ”

“ Squills?—last till the boy goes to school; and then, somehow or other, the thaumata vanish into thin air, like ghosts at the cockcrow. A year after the prodigy has been at the academy, father and mother, uncle and aunt, plague you no more with his doings and sayings: the extraordinary infant has become a very ordinary little boy. ”

“ When he was an infant small.
Thou his image ever see,
Heavenly face that smiles on thee.
Smiles on thee on me on all,
Who became an infant small,
Infant smiles are his own smiles,
Heaven & earth to peace beguiles. ”

“ These people “believe that an infant is the child, not of its parents, but of the spirits, and in this belief they go through the following formalities. As soon as an infant is born it is bathed and dressed, laid upon a rice-sieve, and placed—by the grandmother if present, if not, by the next near female relative—at the head of the stairs or of the ladder leading to the house. ”

“ The boy, too, tries to share in the life of a man, to play at his father's work, to be a miniature carpenter, salesman, or what not. He rides his father's cane and calls it a horse, in the same way that the little girl wraps a shawl about a towel, and showers upon it the tenderest tokens of maternal affection. ”

“ Baby, hear the bells!
—Baby's head
Bows, as ripe for bed,
Now the flowers curl round and close their cells.
Baby, flower of light,
Sleep, and see
Brighter dreams than we,
Till good day shall smile away good night. ”

“ My beloved, the king is Christ; and the son is any bad Christian.
↑ Our nursery-books contain a story not unlike the present. A father resigns his estates to an ungrateful son, and is driven into the garret, and left to neglect and poverty. The grandson pities, and by a pointed speech—hardly characteristic of a child—reproves, and touches his parent's heart. ”

“ I see all around me happy; the grandfather-to-be has become a child again, trespassing on the grandchild's place; the father wears a grave and anxious look; they are all most attentive to me, all talk of the joy of being a mother. ”

“ They prostrate themselves before thy divine Son, O blessed Mother! and by the offerings they make and the homage they pay, acknowledge him as King, God and Man. I rejoice in thy happiness. Look thou on me in this moment, and obtain for me, of thy divine Son, through thy merits, and by the joy thou receivedst on this occasion, a meek and pure heart, and a happy departure from this life, under thy maternal care and powerful protection. ”

“ And every girl a queen;
Then hey for boot and horse, lad,
And round the world away;
Young blood must have its course, lad,
And every dog his day.
When all the world is old, lad,
And all the trees are brown ”

“ My laughing darling in my arms.{75}
Who knows but in Eternity,
I, like a truant child, shall wait
The glories of a life to be,
Beyond the Heavenly Father’s gate?
And will that Heavenly Father heed
The truant’s supplicating cry,
As at the outer door I plead,
“’Tis I, O Father! only I?”
{76} HUGO’S “CHILD AT PLAY”
A CHILD was singing at his play—
I heard the song, and paused to hear;
His mother moaning, groaning lay,
And, lo! a specter stood anear! ”

“ The patronizing attitude of children to their parents is sufficiently illustrated by the really nice little boy in "Transformed," who calls his father "Puppy," a most objectionable thing for a nice little boy to do ”

“ What will the baby be, Mamma,
(With a kick and a crow, and a hushaby-low) .
What will the baby be, Mamma,
When he grows up into a man?
Will he always kick, and always crow,
And flourish his arms and his legs about so,
And make up such horrible faces, you know,
As ugly as ever he can?
The baby he may be a soldier, my dear,
With a fife and a drum, and a rum-tiddy-tum!
The baby he may be a soldier, my dear,
When he grows up into a man. ”

“ Why, two boys, two beautiful young princes, with hair as golden as the stars on their foreheads, and each so like the other, that at the first glance every one would have known them for twins.
The boys grew fast. In every day they grew a year's growth, and in every night another year's growth, but at dawn, when the stars were fading, they grew three years' growth in the twinkling of an eye. And they grew in other things besides height, too. ”

“ And if nature had been niggardly in one respect, she had been generous in others; Toddles, for all his size, possessed the heart of a lion and the strength of a young ox, and he used both, with black and bloody effect, on the eyes and noses of the call-boys and younger element who called him Toddles. ”

“ These Nymphs shall keep my son with them and rear him, and as soon as he is come to lovely boyhood, the goddesses will bring him here to you and show you your child. But, that I may tell you all that I have in mind, I will come here again towards the fifth year and bring you my son. So soon as ever you have seen him—a scion to delight the eyes—you will rejoice in beholding him; for he shall be most godlike: then bring him at once to windy Ilion. ”

“ The stepmother shouted “Go away! may the eagle fly away with you!” But the king’s son, hearing that, hurried to the wash-trough, and lifted it up, and what did he see there! The same girl who had been in the church, in the same golden clothes in which she had appeared the third time there, but lying under the trough, and with only one slipper on. When the king’s son saw her he nearly lost his senses for the moment, he was so very glad. ”

“ But come, setting this duello of wit aside, I have overheard your confession and your casting about for a father, and in troth, in mere charity, came in to relieve you. In the scroll of beasts, horses and asses, that have fed upon this common of yours, you named one Pendant: faith, wench, let him be the father. He is a very handsome gentleman, I can tell you, in my lord's favour. I'll be both secret and your friend to my lord. Let it be him; he shall either reward thee bountifully, or marry thee. ”