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James Whitcomb Riley - No Boy KnowsJames Whitcomb Riley - No Boy Knows
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There are many things that boys may know--   Why this and that are thus and so,--   Who made the world in the dark and lit   The great sun up to lighten it:   Boys know new things every day--   When they study, or when they play,--   When they idle, or sow and reap--   But no boy knows when he goes to sleep.   Boys who listen--or should, at least,--   May know that the round old earth rolls East;--   And know that the ice and the snow and the rain--   Ever repeating their parts again--   Are all just water the sunbeams first   Sip from the earth in their endless thirst,   And pour again till the low streams leap.--   But no boy knows when he goes to sleep.   A boy may know what a long glad while   It has been to him since the dawn`s first smile,   When forth he fared in the realm divine   Of brook-laced woodland and spun-sunshine;--   He may know each call of his truant mates,   And the paths they went,--and the pasture-gates   Of the `cross-lots home through the dusk so deep.--   But no boy knows when he goes to sleep.   O I have followed me, o`er and o`er,   From the flagrant drowse on the parlor-floor,   To the pleading voice of the mother when   I even doubted I heard it then--   To the sense of a kiss, and a moonlit room,   And dewy odors of locust-bloom--   A sweet white cot--and a cricket`s cheep.--   But no boy knows when he goes to sleep.
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