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 sand-bar in the middle tide, And the ghostly dragon-fly 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! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...FALSE POETS AND TRUE; TO WORDSWORTH by THOMAS HOOD VARIUM ET MUTABILE by THOMAS WYATT WYATT BEING IN PRISON, TO BRIAN by THOMAS WYATT THE SONG OF THE DIAL by PETER AIREY THE BROWN GIANT by ALEXANDER ANDERSON LILIES: 21. ART NEEDS THEE by GEORGE BARLOW (1847-1913) AN ELEGY by WILLIAM BROWNE (1591-1643) |