No Boy Knows

There are many things that boys may know -      Why this and that are thus and so, -      Who made the world in the dark and lit      The great sun up to lighten it:      Boys know new things every day -      When they study, or when they play, -      When they idle, or sow and reap -      But no boy knows when he goes to sleep.      Boys who listen - or should, at least, -      May know that the round old earth rolls East; -      And know that the ice and the snow and the rain -      Ever repeating their parts again -      Are all just water the sunbeams first      Sip from the earth in their endless thirst,      And pour again till the low streams leap. -      But no boy knows when he goes to sleep.      A boy may know what a long glad while      It has been to him since the dawn's first smile,      When forth he fared in the realm divine      Of brook-laced woodland and spun-sunshine; -      He may know each call of his truant mates,      And the paths they went, - and the pasture-gates      Of the 'cross-lots home through the dusk so deep. -      But no boy knows when he goes to sleep.      O I have followed me, o'er and o'er,      From the flagrant drowse on the parlor-floor,      To the pleading voice of the mother when      I even doubted I heard it then -      To the sense of a kiss, and a moonlit room,      And dewy odors of locust-bloom -      A sweet white cot - and a cricket's cheep. -      But no boy knows when he goes to sleep.