Poetry Archives

He’s a boy,
And that’s the long and (chiefly) the short of it,
And the point of it and the wonderful sport of it;
  A two-year-old with a taste for a toy,
  And two chubby fists to clutch it and grasp it,
  And two fat arms to embrace it and clasp it;
  And a short stout couple of sturdy legs
  As hard and as smooth as ostrich eggs;
  And a jolly round head, so fairly round
    You could easily roll it,
    Or take it and bowl it
  With never a bump along the ground.

And, as to his cheeks, they’re also fat—
I’ve seen them in ancient prints like that,
    Where a wind-boy high
    In a cloudy sky
  Is puffing away for all he’s worth,
    Uprooting the trees
    With a reckless breeze,
  And strewing them over the patient earth,
  Or raising a storm to wreck the ships
  With the work of his lungs and cheeks and lips.

Take a look at his eyes; I put it to you,
Were ever two eyes more truly blue?
If you went and worried the whole world through
You’d never discover a bluer blue;
I doubt if you’d find a blue so true
In the coats and scarves of a Cambridge crew.

    And his hair
    Is as fair
    As a pretty girl’s,

But it’s right for a boy with its crisp, short curls
All a-gleam, as he struts about
  With a laugh and a shout,
To summon his sister-slaves to him
For his joyous Majesty’s careless whim.

But now, as, after a stand, he budges,
And sets to work and solemnly trudges,
Out from a bush there springs full tilt
His four-legged playmate—and John is spilt.

She’s a young dog and a strong dog
And a tall dog and a long dog,
A Danish lady of high degree,
Black coat, kind eye and a stride that’s free.

    And out she came
    Like a burst of flame,
      And John,
    As he trudged and strutted
      Sturdily on,
    Was blindly butted,
      And, all his dignity spent and gone,
        On a patch of clover
        Was tumbled over,
   His two short legs having failed to score
   In a sudden match against Lufra’s four.

   But we picked him up
     And we brushed him down,
   And he rated the pup
     With a dreadful frown;
And then he laughed and he went and hugged her,
Seized her tail in his fist and tugged her,
  And so, with a sister’s hand to guide him,
  Continued his march with the dog beside him.

And soon he waggles his way upstairs—
He does it alone, though he finds it steep.
He is stripped and gowned, and he says his prayers,
    And he condescends
    To admit his friends
  To a levee before he goes to sleep.
    He thrones it there
    With a battered bear
  And a tattered monkey to form his Court,
  And, having come to the end of day,
  Conceives that this is the time for play
  And every possible kind of sport.

But at last, tucked in for the hundredth time,
He babbles a bit of nursery rhyme,
      And on the bed
    Droops his curly round head,
  Gives one long sigh of unalloyed content
  Over a day so well, so proudly spent,
  Resigned at last to listen and obey,
  And so begins to breathe his quiet night away.