In My Nursery

In My Nursery
Laura Richards

Laura E. Richards

In My Nursery

To my Mother

JULIA WARD HOWE

Sweet! when first my baby ear
Curled itself and learned to hear,
'Twas your silver-singing voice
Made my baby heart rejoice.

Hushed upon your tender breast,
Soft you sang me to my rest;
Waking, when I sought my play,
Still your singing led the way.

Cradle songs, more soft and low
Than the bird croons on the bough;
Olden ballads, grave and gay,
Warrior's chant, and lover's lay.

So my baby hours went
In a cadence of content,
To the music and the rhyme
Keeping tune and keeping time.

So you taught me, too, ere long,
All our life should be a song, —
Should a faltering prelude be
To the heavenly harmony;

And with gracious words and high,
Bade me look beyond the sky,
To the Glory throned above,
To th' eternal Light and Love.

Many years have blossomed by:
Far and far from childhood I;
Yet its sunrays on me fall,
Here among my children all.

So among my babes I go,
Singing high and singing low;
Striving for the silver tone
Which my memory holds alone.

If I chant my little lays
Tunefully, be yours the praise;
If I fail, 'tis I must rue
Not t' have closelier followed you.

IN MY NURSERY

In my nursery as I sit,
To and fro the children flit:
Rosy Alice, eldest born,
Rosalind like summer morn,
Sturdy Hal, as brown as berry,
Little Julia, shy and merry,
John the King, who rules us all,
And the Baby sweet and small.

Flitting, flitting to and fro,
Light they come and light they go:
And their presence fair and young
Still I weave into my song.
Here rings out their merry laughter,
Here their speech comes tripping after:
Here their pranks, their sportive ways,
Flash along the lyric maze,
Till I hardly know, in fine,
What is theirs and what is mine:
Can but say, through wind and weather,
They and I have wrought together.

THE BABY'S FUTURE

What will the baby be, Mamma,
(With a kick and a crow, and a hushaby-low).
What will the baby be, Mamma,
When he grows up into a man?
Will he always kick, and always crow,
And flourish his arms and his legs about so,
And make up such horrible faces, you know,
As ugly as ever he can?

The baby he may be a soldier, my dear,
With a fife and a drum, and a rum-tiddy-tum!
The baby he may be a soldier, my dear,
When he grows up into a man.
He will draw up his regiment all in a row,
And flourish his sword in the face of the foe,
Who will hie them away on a tremulous toe,
As quickly as ever they can.