O lord! my boy, my Arthur, my fair son!
My life, my joy, my food, my all the world!
My widow-comfort, and my sorrow's cure!
We have no such daughter, nor shall ever see
That face of her again. Therefore begone
Without our grace, our love, our benizon.
Fathers that wear rags
Do make their children blind;
But fathers that bear bags
Shall see their children kind.
It is a wise father that knows his own child.
Bold, quick, ingenious, forward, capable;
He's all the mother's from the top to toe.
Your children were vexation to your youth,
But mine shall be a comfort to your age.
Behold, my lords,
Although the print be little, the whole matter
And copy of the father, eye, nose, lip,
The trick of's frown, his forehead, nay, the valley,
The pretty dimples of his chin and cheek; his
smiles;
The very mould and frame of hand, nail, finger.
A little child born yesterday
A thing on mother's milk and kisses fed.
It is very nice to think
The world is full of meat and drink
With little children saying grace
In every Christian kind of place.
Thought.
In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer, quite the other way,
have to go to bed by day.
When I am grown to man's estate
I shall be very proud and great
And tell the other girls and boys
Not to meddle with my toys. <poem>
Every night my prayers I say,
And get my dinner everyday,
And every day that I've been good,
I get an orange after food.
While here at home, in shining day,
We round the sunny garden play,
Each little Indian sleepy-head
Is being kissed and put to bed.
Children are the keys of Paradise,
They alone are good and wise,
Because their thoughts, their very lives, are
prayer.
If there is anything that will endure
The eye of God, because it still is pure, It is the spirit of a little child, Fresh from his hand, and therefore undented. </poem>
"Not a child: I call myself a boy,"
Says my king, with accent stern yet mild;
Now nine years have brought him change of joy—
"Not a child."
But still I dream that somewhere there must be
The spirit of a child that waits for me.
Nam qui mentiri, aut fallere insuerit patrem, aut
Audebit: tanto magis audebit caeteros.*
Pudore et liberalitate liberos
Retinere satius esse credo, quam metu.
For he who has acquired the habit of lying
or deceiving his father, will do the same with less
remorse to others. I believe that it is better to
bind your children to you by a feeling of respect,
and by gentleness, than by fear.
Ut quisque suum vult esse, ita est.
As each one wishes his children to be, so
they are.
Birds in their little nests agree:
And 'tis a shameful sight,
When children of one family
Fall out, and chide, and fight.
In books, or work, or healthful play,
Let my first years be past,
That I may give for every day
Some good account at last.
Oh, for boyhood's time of June,
Crowding years in one brief moon,
When all things I heard or saw,
Me, their master, waited for.
The sweetest roamer is a boy's young heart.
The child is father of the man.
