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Carolyn Wells
The Seven Ages of Childhood
(Illustrated Edition)
Children's Book Classic
Published by
Advanced Digital Solutions & High-Quality eBook Formatting
[email protected] 2017 OK Publishing ISBN 978-80-272-2318-3
Table of Contents
To
the seven little friends
who so kindly helped me
in making these pictures,
this book is affectionately dedicated
I
First the Infant in Its Mother's Arms
Baby, of all mysterious things,
You're stranger far than stars or kings.
You stare superbly day by day,
Nor let your large reserve give way.
Unfathomable mysteries
Lurk in your big, unseeing eyes,
Making brave memories, and yet,
Making them only to forget.
But though reflectively you blink,
Trying to make us think you think,
We know you cannot think or talk,
You cannot run, you cannot walk;
You little human mystery,
You can't do anything but be.
You small, content, safe-guarded thing,
Nestling beneath your mother's wing.
You're all so new; your roseleaf skin,
Your dewy eyes and dimpled chin,
Your pinch of hair and pound of flesh
Are all so delicate and fresh.
Then, Baby, every little while
You cry. And then perhaps you smile.
You cry without a bit of reason,
You laugh both in and out of season;
A wise proceeding, I suppose,
If that is all the speech one knows.
But sometimes do the dull hours drag?
And sometimes does your patience flag?
Long days and nights you must get through,
Without a single thing to do.
And though perhaps you see and hear,
It means naught to your eye and ear.
But, Baby, you don't seem to care,
You hark at silence,—look at air!
And in the stillness, or the dark,
Absorbedly you look and hark.
So, then, what difference can it make,
Whether you are asleep or 'wake?
You cannot think, and it would seem
You do not know enough to dream.
How can you dream, not knowing words?
Or is it like the song of birds,
Or scent of flowers, or sunshine bright,
Or South breeze on a summer's night?
Perhaps your thoughts just flounder 'round
In seas of color, waves of sound;
In notions vague of shape or form.
As,—Life is something soft and warm.
Mother is just a happy place;
Nurse is a sort of vacant space.
And father
