Where the summers go;--
He need not laugh, for he'll find it so!

Who can tell what a baby thinks?
Who can follow the gossamer links
By which the manikin feels his way
Out from the shore of the great unknown,
Blind, and wailing, and alone,
Into the light of day?--
Out from the shore of the unknown sea,
Tossing in pitiful agony,--
Of the unknown sea that reels and rolls,
Specked with the barks of little souls--
Barks that were launched on the other side,
And slipped from Heaven on an ebbing tide!
What does he think of his mother's eyes?
What does he think of his mother's hair?
What of the cradle-roof that flies
Forward and backward through the air?
What does he thinks of his mother's breast--
Bare and beautiful, smooth and white,
Seeking it ever with fresh delight--
Cup of his life and couch of his rest?
What does he think when her quick embrace
Presses his hand and buries his face
Deep where the heart-throbs sink and swell
With a tenderness she can never tell,
Though she murmur the words
Of all the birds--
Words she has learned to murmur well?