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.