THE OLD CRADLE.

Hawke's Bay Times, Issue 1609, 8 September 1874, Page 349

THE OLD CRADLE.

FREDERICK LOCKER. And this was your cradle 1 Why, surely, ray Jenny, Its narrow dimensions go clearly to show You were an exceedingly small picaninuy Some nineteen or twenty shortsummers ago. Your baby-days flow’d in a much-troubled channel; I see you as then in your impotent strife, A tight little bundle of wailing and flannel, Perplex’d with the newly-found fardel of Life. To hint at an infantile frailty’s a scandal: Let bygones be bygones, for somebody knows It was, bliss such a Baby to dance and to dandle, — Your cheeks were so velvet, so rosy your toes! Ay, here is your Cradle ; and Hope, a bright spirit, With love now is watching beside it, I know, They guard the small nest it was yours to in* herit Some nineteen or twenty short summers ago, It is Hope gilds the future, Love welcomes it j smiling; Thus wags this old world, therefore stay n«t to ask, “ My future bids fair, is my future beguiling ? ” If mask’d still it pleases—then raise not its mask. Is life, a poor coil some would gladly be doffing ? He is rid ing .post-haste who their wrongs will adjust; For at most it’s a footstep from cradle to coffin— From a spoonful of pap to a mouthful of dust. Then smile as your future is smiling, my J enny; I see you, except for those infantine woes, Little changed since you were but- a small picaninny— Your cheeks were so velvet, so rosy your toes 1 Ay, here is your Cradle, much, much to my liking, Though nineteen or twenty long winters have sped; Hark 1 As I’m talking there’s six o’clock striking,— It is time Jenny’s baby should be in its bed. —London Lyrics,