Laura Richards - In My Nursery

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 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.

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.

The baby he may be a sailor, my dear,
With a fore and an aft, and a tight little craft
The baby he may be a sailor, my dear,
When he grows up into a man.
He will hoist his sails with a "Yo! heave, ho!"
And take in his reefs when it comes on to blow,
And shiver his timbers and so forth, you know,
On a genuine nautical plan.

The baby he may be a doctor, my dear,
With a powder and pill, and a nice little bill.
The baby he may be a doctor, my dear,
When he grows up into a man.
He will dose you with rhubarb, and calomel too,
With draughts that are black and with pills that are blue;
And the chances will be, when he's finished with you,
You'll be worse off than when he began.

The baby he may be a lawyer, my dear,
With a bag and a fee, and a legal decree.
The baby he may be a lawyer, my dear,
When he grows up into a man.
But, oh! dear me, should I tell to you
The terrible things that a lawyer can do,
You would take to your heels when he came into view,
And run from Beersheba to Dan.

Like a little crumpled roseleaf
It lies on my bosom now,
Like a tiny sunset cloudlet,
Like a flake of rose-tinted snow;
And the pretty, helpless fingers
Are never a moment at rest,
But ever are moving and straying
About on the mother's breast:
Trying to grasp the sunbeam
That streams through the window high;
Trying to catch the white garments
Of the angels hovering by.
And as she pats and caresses
The dear little lovely hand,
The mother's thoughts go forward
Toward the future's shadowy land.
And ever her anxious vision
Strives to pierce each coming year,
With a mother's height of rapture,
With a mother's depth of fear,
As she thinks, "In the years that are coming,
Be they many or be they few,
What work is the good God sending
For this little hand to do?
Will it always be open in giving,
And always strong for the right?
Will it always be ready for labor,
Yet always gentle and light?
Will it wield the brush or the chisel
In the magical realms of Art?
Will it waken the loveliest music
To gladden the weary heart?
Will it smooth the sufferer's pillow,
Bring rest to his aching head?
Will it proffer the cup of cold water?
By it shall the hungry be fed?
Oh! in the years that are coming,
Be they many or be they few,
What now is the good God sending
For this little hand to do?"
Thus the mother's anxious vision
Strives to pierce each coming year,
With a mother's height of rapture,
With a mother's depth of fear.
Ah! whatever may be its fortunes,
Whatever in life its part,
This little wee hand will never loose
Its hold on the mother's heart.

My own little beautiful Baby,
You're weeping most bitterly, dear!
There'd soon be a lake, if we treasured
Each sweet little silvery tear.

A lake? Nay! an ocean of sorrow
Would murmur and sigh at your feet,
And you would be drowned in your tear-drops,
My own little Baby sweet.

But, darling, as in the wide ocean
The divers plunge boldly down,
And bring up the radiant pearl-drops
To set in some royal crown,

E'en so from the sea of your sorrow,
This dolorous "fountain of youth,"
Will come, ere a week be over,
A little wee pearly tooth.

And then the tears will all vanish,
Dried up by the sunshine of smiles;
And we'll have back our own little Alice,
With her merriest frolics and wiles.

And whenever you laugh, my Baby,
Through all your life's happy years,
You'll show us the radiant pearl-drop
That you brought from the ocean of tears.

Here on our rock-away horse we go,
Johnny and I, to a land we know, —
Far away in the sunset gold,
A lovelier land than can be told.

Chorus. Where all the flowers go niddlety nod,
Nod, nod, niddlety nod!
Where all the flowers go niddlety nod,
And all the birds sing by-low!
Lullaby, lullaby, by-low.

The gates are ivory set with pearls,
One for the boys, and one for the girls:
So shut your bonny two eyes of blue,
Or else they never will let you through.

Chorus. Where all the flowers go niddlety nod,
Nod, nod, niddlety nod!
Where all the flowers go niddlety nod,
And all the birds sing by-low!
Lullaby, lullaby, by-low.