A Little Boy's Dream

The bed was long and the bed was wide, and high was its

 polished head ;

But in spite of its length and breadth and height it still was a

little boy's bed,

And he said he would loan it me, he would, but just for a

 night or so,

Or through the visit r d make the two r d known in the long

 ago

When they were as little as he is now, as he is, their little boy;

Oh, days and ways of the long ago! When the morns came

in with joy,

And day went out with a lilt of glee which came through the

 fading light !

The moms were good and the nights were good! Why,

 always we said, "Goodnight."

And I was visiting them that night, and when our goodnights

 were said

I set my sails for the land of dreams, I did, from a little boy's

bed;

And that's how it happened, or I suppose that's how it hap-

pened to me,

The angels came with their bags of dreams from over the

Dreamland Sea-

From away out over the Dreamland Sea-and white was the

 pearly gleam

Of their snowy wings-and by mistake they left me a little boy's dream !

They did! I dreamed I was three years old, and my eyes they were

 glad and blue;

And my cheeks were as round as a little boy's, and my chin

 it was dimpled, too.

And I was wishing as small boys do, as hard as tl1ey ever can,

That I could hurry across the years, and that I could be a man ;

I did, I wanted to be a man, as hard as I ever could ;

For being a boy was an irksome thing, and being a man

seemed good !

And then I awoke, and found I was the thing I had longed

to be!

The years had whitened and thinned my locks and long had

their will with me,

And I was old! And, Oh, I longed and reached for my dream

again!

But night was gone, and I was launched again in the world

of men !

But I hope with all of my heart the boy, wherever he chanced

to be,

Had somehow captured the dream which came from out of

Dreamland for me ;

I hope he dreamed he was old, so old he was nearing the

end of joy;

And I hope he wished with a grieving wish that he was a

little boy,

And could go aback down the weary years to the meadows

where blossoms blow

Beside the ways of the little boys he had known in the long

ago;

And I hope he awoke with the tears undried on the cheeks

he had dreamed were old

And found that he was a little boy with all of life's tales

untold.

I hope he did. It would be a joy to me if I knew that he

Had somehow captured the dream which came from out of

Dreamland for me

As I got the dream which was meant for him. 'Twere good

for a boy to know

How men dream dreams and long and long for days of the

long ago;

And if he captured an old man's dream, and woke up a little

boy,

He will go his way and will know more than he otherwise

would of joy;

He will know that little boys grown tall, and out in the world,

of men,

Are always wishing down in their hearts that they could be

boys again.

Poems for Declamation Table of Content