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 sandbar in the middle-tide,      And the ghostly dragonfly 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.