O how much wiser you would be

To play at Indian wars with me!
VIII

Historical Associations
Dear Uncle Jim. this garden ground

That now you smoke your pipe around,
has seen immortal actions done

And valiant battles lost and won.
Here we had best on tip-toe tread,

While I for safety march ahead,
For this is that enchanted ground

Where all who loiterslumber sound.
Here is the sea, here is the sand,

Here is the simple Shepherd's Land,
Here are the fairy hollyhocks,

And there are Ali Baba's rocks.
But yonder, see! apart and high,

Frozen Siberia lies; where I,
With Robert Bruce William Tell,

Was bound by an enchanter's spell.
ENVOYS

I
To Willie and Henrietta

If two may read aright
These rhymes of old delight

And house and garden play,
You too, my cousins, and you only, may.

You in a garden green
With me were king and queen,

Were hunter, soldier, tar,
And all the thousand things that children are.

Now in the elders' seat
We rest with quiet feet,

And from the window-bay
We watch the children, our successors, play.

"Time was," the golden head
Irrevocably said;

But time which one can bind,
While flowing fast away, leaves love behind.

II
To My Mother

You too, my mother, read my rhymes
For love of unforgotten times,

And you may chance to hear once more
The little feet along the floor.

III
To Auntie

"Chief of our aunts"--not only I,
But all your dozen of nurselings cry--

"What did the other children do?
And what were childhood, wanting you?"

IV
To Minnie

The red room with the giant bed
Where none but elders laid their head;

The little room where you and I
Did for awhile together lie

And, simple, suitor, I your hand
In decent marriage did demand;

The great day nursery, best of all,
With pictures pasted on the wall

And leaves upon the blind--
A pleasant room wherein to wake

And hear the leafy garden shake
And rustle in the wind--

And pleasant there to lie in bed
And see the pictures overhead--

The wars about Sebastopol,
The grinning guns along the wall,

The daring escalade,
The plunging ships, the bleating sheep,

The happy children ankle-deep
And laughing as they wade:

All these are vanished clean away,
And the old manse is changed to-day;

It wears an altered face
And shields a stranger race.

The river, on from mill to mill,
Flows past our childhood's garden still;

But ah! we children never more
Shall watch it from the water-door!

Below the yew--it still is there--
Our phantom voices haunt the air

As we were still at play,
And I can hear them call and say:

"How far is it to Babylon?"
Ah, far enough, my dear,

Far, far enough from here--
Smiling and kind, you grace a shelf

Too high for me to reach myself.
Reach down a hand, my dear, and take

These rhymes for old acquaintance' sake!
Yet you have farther gone!

"Can I get there by candlelight?"
So goes the old refrain.

I do not know--perchance you might--
But only, children, hear it right,

Ah, never to return again!
The eternal dawn, beyond a doubt,

Shall break on hill and plain,
And put all stars and candles out

Ere we be young again.
To you in distant India, these

I send across the seas,
Nor count it far across.

For which of us forget
The Indian cabinets,

The bones of antelope, the wings of albatross,
The pied and painted birds and beans,

The junks and bangles, beads and screens,
The gods and sacred bells,

And the load-humming, twisted shells!
The level of the parlour floor

Was honest, homely, Scottish shore;
But when we climbed upon a chair,

Behold the gorgeous East was there!
Be this a fable; and behold

Me in the parlour as of old,
And Minnie just above me set

In the quaint Indian cabinet!
V

To My Name-child
1

Some day soon this rhyming volume, if you learn with proper speed,
Little Louis Sanchez, will be given you to read.

Then you shall discover, that your name was printed down
By the English printers, long before, in London town.

In the great and busy city where the East and West are met,
All the little letters did the English printer set;

While you thought of nothing, and were still too young to play,
Foreign people thought of you in places far away.

Ay, and when you slept, a baby, over all the English lands
Other little children took the volume in their hands;

Other children questioned, in their homes across the seas:
Who was little Louis, won't you tell us, mother, please?

2
Now that you have spelt your lesson, lay it down and go and play,

Seeking shells and seaweed on the sands of Monterey,
Watching all the mighty whalebones, lying buried by the breeze,

Tiny sandpipers, and the huge Pacific seas.
And remember in your playing, as the sea-fog rolls to you,

Long ere you could read it, how I told you what to do;
And that while you thought of no one, nearly half the world away

Some one thought of Louis on the beach of Monterey!
VI

To Any Reader
As from the house your mother sees

You playing round the garden trees,
So you may see, if you will look

Through the windows of this book,
Another child, far, far away,

And in another garden, play.
But do not think you can at all,

By knocking on the window, call
That child to hear you. He intent

Is all on his play-business bent.
He does not hear, he will not look,

Nor yet be lured out of this book.
For, long ago, the truth to say,

He has grown up and gone away,
And it is but a child of air

That lingers in the garden there.
End

• indian [´indiən] a.印度的 n.印度人 (初中英语单词)
• immortal [i´mɔ:təl] a.不死的n.不朽的人物 (初中英语单词)
• slumber [´slʌmbə] v.&n.睡眠；沉睡状态 (初中英语单词)
• hunter [´hʌntə] n.猎人；猎狗；猎马 (初中英语单词)
• childhood [´tʃaildhud] n.幼年(时代)；早期 (初中英语单词)
• awhile [ə´wail] ad.少顷；片刻 (初中英语单词)
• rustle [´rʌsl] v.&n.(使)沙沙作响 (初中英语单词)
• eternal [i´tə:nəl] a.永远的；永恒的 (初中英语单词)
• sacred [´seikrid] a.神圣的；庄严的 (初中英语单词)
• volume [´vɔlju:m, ´vɑljəm] n.卷；书籍；体积；容量 (初中英语单词)
• decent [´di:sənt] a.体面的，正派的 (高中英语单词)
• nursery [´nə:səri] n.托儿所；苗床；养鱼场 (高中英语单词)
• wherein [weər´in] ad.那里面 (高中英语单词)
• homely [´həumli] a.朴素的；不漂亮的 (高中英语单词)
• gorgeous [´gɔ:dʒəs] a.华丽的；宜人的 (高中英语单词)
• quaint [kweint] a.离奇的；奇妙的 (高中英语单词)
• mighty [´maiti] a.强有力的 ad.很 (高中英语单词)
• pacific [pə´sifik] a.和平的；温和的 (高中英语单词)
• valiant [´væliənt] a.勇敢的，英勇的 (英语四级单词)
• suitor [´su:tə, ´sju:-] n.原告；请求者；求爱者 (英语四级单词)
• daring [´deəriŋ] a.&n.勇敢(的) (英语四级单词)
• antelope [´æntiləup] n.羚羊 (英语四级单词)
• scottish [´skɔtiʃ, ´skɑtiʃ] a.&n.苏格兰人(的) (英语四级单词)
• printer [´printə] n.印刷者；排字工人 (英语四级单词)
• loiter [´lɔitə] v.闲逛，消磨时间 (英语六级单词)
• wanting [´wɔntiŋ, wɑ:n-] a.短缺的；不足的 (英语六级单词)
• phantom [´fæntəm] n.幽灵；幻影 a.幻想的 (英语六级单词)
• seaweed [´si:wi:d] n.海草，海藻 (英语六级单词)