Seven Times Four

Maternity HEIGH-HO! daisies and buttercups, Fair yellow daffodils, stately and tall! When the wind wakes, how they rock in the grasses, And dance with the cuckoo-buds slender and small! Here ’s two bonny boys, and here ’s mother’s own lasses, Eager to gather them all. Heigh-ho! daisies and buttercups! Mother shall thread them a daisy chain; Sing them a song of the pretty hedge-sparrow, That loved her brown little ones, loved them full fain; Sing, “Heart, thou art wide, though the house be but narrow,”— Sing once, and sing it again. Heigh-ho! daisies and buttercups, Sweet wagging cowslips, they bend and they bow; A ship sails afar over warm ocean waters, And haply one musing doth stand at her prow. O bonny brown sons, and O sweet little daughters, Maybe he thinks on you now! Heigh-ho! daisies and buttercups, Fair yellow daffodils, stately and tall— A sunshiny world full of laughter and leisure, And fresh hearts unconscious of sorrow and thrall! Send down on their pleasure smiles passing its measure, God that is over us all!

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Poems of Home: I. About Children

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