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James Whitcomb Riley - Babyhood
Work rating: Low

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 sandbar in the middle-tide,
  And the ghostly dragonfly 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.
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