"Rockaby, baby,

Your cradle is green;

Father's a nobleman,

Mother's a queen;

And Betty's a lady,

And wears a gold ring,

And Johnny's a drummer,

And drums for the king!"

O golden gift of childhood!

That, with its kingly touch,

Transforms to more than royalty

The thing it loveth much!

O second sight, bestowed alone

Upon the baby seer,

That the glory held in Heaven's reserve

Discerneth even here!

Though he be the humblest craftsman,

No silk nor ermine piled

Could make the father seem a whit

More noble to the child;

And the mother,—ah, what queenlier crown

Could rest upon her brow,

Than the fair and gentle dignity

It weareth to him now?

E'en the gilded ring that Michael

For a penny fairing bought,

Is the seal of Betty's ladyhood

To his untutored thought;

And the darling drum about his neck,—

His very newest toy,—

A bandsman unto Majesty

Hath straightway made the boy!

O golden gift of childhood!

If the talisman might last,

How the dull Present still should gleam

With the glory of the Past!

But the things of earth about us

Fade and dwindle as we go,

And the long perspective of our life

Is truth, and not a show!