Page:Poems Blake.djvu/149

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OF CHILDHOOD.

AN ANSWER!
"What is the Baby made for?" Why,
For hugging and kissing, and cooing and pressing;
For joy to the heart, and for light to the eye;
For tossing and tumbling and loving caressing;
  For crowing and crooning and smiling;
  For dimpling and pretty beguiling;
      For fretting,
      And petting,
    And sudden sweet antic,—
      For crying
      And trying
    To make us all frantic;
For trouble and care that can never be paid for,
Perhaps this may be what the Baby is made for!

"What is the Baby made for?" Well,
For ruling the house with a sceptre imperious;
For making, as if by a fairy spell,
Our working time gay, and our playing time serious;