Beautiful Dreamer, Stephen Foster
The Source, Rabindranath Tagore
Tura-Lura-Lura Loo, James Royce Shannon
Lullably Town, John Irving Diller
The Modern Baby, William Croswell Doane
Letters to God
The Children’s Hour, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Girl Scout Picnic 1954, June Beisch
Tarkington, Ogden Nash
Thank Heaven for Little Girls (Gigi), Alan Lerner (Richard Lowe)
Don’t Know Much About History, Sam Cooke
The Young Man’s Song, W.B. Yeats


 
 
 

Beautiful Dreamer (excerpt)
by Stephen Foster

Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me,
Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee;
Sounds of the rude world heard in the day,
Lull’d by the moonlight have all pass’d a way!

Beautiful dreamer, queen of my song,
List while I woo thee with soft melody;
Gone are the cares of life’s busy throng, —
Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me!
Beautiful dreamer awake unto me!

 
 
 

The Source
by Rabindranath Tagore
(translated)

The sleep that flits on baby’s eyes —
does anyone know from where it comes?
Yes, there is a rumor that it has its dwelling where
in the fairy village, among shadows of the forest,
dimly lit with glow-worms,
there hang two shy buds of enchantment.
From there it comes, to kiss baby’s eyes.

The smile that flickers on baby’s lips when he sleeps —
does anybody know where it was born?
Yes, there is a rumour that a young pale beam
of a crescent moon touched the edge of a vanishing
autumn cloud and there the smile was first born
in the dream of a dew-washed morning —
the smile that flickers on baby’s lips, when he sleeps.

The sweet, soft freshness that blooms on baby’s limbs —
does anybody know where it was hidden so long?
Yes, when the mother was a young girl it lay
pervading her heart in tender and silent mystery of love —
the sweet, soft freshness, that has bloomed on baby’s limbs.

 
 
 

Tura-Lura Loo
by James Royce Shannon

Over in Killarney,
Many years ago,
Me mither sang a song to me
In tones so sweet and low.
Just a simple little ditty,
In her good ould Irish way,
And I’d give the world if she could sing
That song to me this day.
Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral,
Too-ra-loo-ra-li,
Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral,
Hush, now don’t you cry!
Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral,
Too-ra-loo-ra-li,
Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral,
That’s an Irish lullaby.

Oft, in dreams I wander
To that cot again,
I feel her arms a huggin’ me
As when she held me then.
And I hear her voice a humin’
To me as in days of yore,
When she used to rock me fast asleep
Outside the cabin door.
Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral,
Too-ra-loo-ra-li,
Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral,
Hush, now don’t you cry!
Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral,
Too-ra-loo-ra-li,
Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral,
That’s an Irish lullaby.

 
 
 

Lullably Town
by John Irving Diller

There’s a Quaint little place they call Lullaby Town —
It’s just back of those hills where the sunsets go down.
Its streets are of silver, its buildings of gold,
And its palaces dazzling things to behold:
There are dozens of spires, housing musical chimes;
Its people are folk from the Nursery Rimes,
And at night it’s alight, like a garden of gleams,
With fairies, who bring the most wonderful dreams.

The Sandman is Mayor, and he rules like a King.
The climate’s so balmy that, always, it’s spring,
And it’s never too cold, and it’s never too hot,
And I’m told that there’s nowhere a prettier spot;
All in and about it are giant old trees,
Filled with radiant birds that will sing when you please;
But the strange thing about it — this secret, pray, keep —
Is, it never awakes till the world is asleep.

So when night settles down, all its lights snap aglow,
And its streets fill with people who dance to and fro.
Mother Goose, Old King Cole and his fiddlers three,
Miss Muffet, Jack Sprat and his wife, scamper free
With a whole host of others, a boisterous crew,
Not forgetting the Old Lady Who Lived in a Shoe
And her troublesome brood who, with brownie and sprite,
Go trooping the streets, a bewildering sight.

There’s a peddler who carries, strapped high on his back,
A bundle. Now, guess what he has in the pack.
There’s a crowd all about him a-buying his wares,
And they’re grabbing his goods up in threes and in pairs
No, he’s not peddling jams nor delectable creams.
Would you know what he’s selling? Just wonderful dreams!

There are dreams for a penny and dreams that cost two;
And there’s no two alike, and they’re sure to come true;
And the buyers fare off with a toss of the head,
And they visit the Sandman, then hie them to bed.
For there’s nothing to do in this land of Bo-Peep,
But to frolic and sing and then go off to sleep!

 
 
 

The Modern Baby
by William Croswell Doane

“The hand that rocks the cradle” — but there is no such hand;
It is bad to rock the baby, they would have us understand;
So the cradle’s but a relic of the former foolish days
When mothers reared their children in unscientific ways —
When they jounced them and they bounced them, these poor
dwarfs of long ago —
The Washingtons and Jeffersons and Adamses, you know.

They warn us that the baby will possess a muddled brain
If we dandle him or rock him — we must carefully refrain;
He must lie in one position, never swayed and never swung,
Or his chance to grow to greatness will be blasted while he’s young.
Ah! To think how they were ruined by their mothers long ago —
The Franklins and the Putnams and the Hamiltons, you know.

Then we must feed the baby by the schedule that is made,
And the food that he is given must be measured out or weighed.
He may bellow to inform us that he isn’t satisfied,
But he couldn’t grow to greatness if his wants were all supplied.
Think how foolish nursing stunted those poor weaklings, long ago —
The Shakespeares and the Luthers and the Buonapartes, you know.

We are given a great mission, we are here today on earth
To bring forth a race of giants, and to guard them from their birth,
To insist upon their freedom from the rocking that was bad
For our parents and their parents, scrambling all the brains they had.
Ahl If they’d been fed by schedule would they have been stunted so?
The Websters and the Lincolns and the Roosevelts, you know.

 
 
 

Letters to God

Dear GOD, Are you really invisible or is that just a trick? – Lucy

Dear GOD, You don’t have to worry about me. I always look both ways – Dean

Dear GOD, Did you mean for the giraffe to look like that or was it an accident? – Norma

Dear GOD, Of all the people who work for you, I like Noah and David the best. – Rob

Dear GOD, Who draws the lines around the countries? Nan

Dear GOD, What does it mean You are a Jealous God? I thought You had everything – Jane

Dear GOD, Please send me a pony. I never asked for anything before, You can look it up. – Bruce

Dear GOD, I bet it is very hard for You to love all of everybody in the whole world.
There are only 4 people in our family and I can never do it. – Nan

Dear GOD, If you give me a genie lamp like Aladdin, I will give you anything you want,
except my money or my chess set. Raphael

Dear GOD, We read Thomas Edison made light. But in school they said You did it.
So I bet he stole your idea. – Donna.

Dear GOD, Maybe Cain and Abel would not kill each other so much if they had their
own rooms. It works with my brother. – Larry

Dear GOD, If you watch me in church Sunday, I’ll show You my new shoes. – Lucy

 
 
 

The Children’s Hour
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Between the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day’s occupations,
That is known as the Children’s Hour.

I hear in the chamber above me
The patter of little feet,
The sound of a door that is opened,
And voices soft and sweet.

From my study I see in the lamplight,
Descending the broad hall stair,
Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,
And Edith with golden hair.

A whisper, and then a silence:
Yet I know by their merry eyes
They are plotting and planning together
To take me by surprise.

A sudden rush from the stairway,
A sudden raid from the hall!
By three doors left unguarded
They enter my castle wall!

They climb up into my turret
O’er the arms and back of my chair;
If I try to escape, they surround me;
They seem to be everywhere.

They almost devour me with kisses,
Their arms about me entwine,
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen
In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!

Do you think, o blue-eyed banditti,
Because you have scaled the wall,
Such an old mustache as I am
Is not a match for you all!

I have you fast in my fortress,
And will not let you depart,
But put you down into the dungeon
In the round-tower of my heart.

And there will I keep you forever,
Yes, forever and a day,
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
And moulder in dust away!

 
 
 

Girl Scout Picnic 1954
by June Beisch

You should get the text from another source.

 
 
 

Tarkington
by Odgen Nash

You should get the text from another source.

 
 
 

Thank Heaven for Little Girls (Gigi)
by Alan Lerner (Richard Lowe)

You should get the text from another source.

 
 
 

Don’t Know Much About History
by Sam Cooke

You should get the text from another source.

 
 
 

The Young Man’s Song
by W.B. Yeats

I whispered, “I am too young,”
And then, “I am old enough”;
Wherefore I threw a penny
To find out if I might love.
“Go and love, go and love, young man,
If the lady be young and fair,”
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
I am looped in the loops of her hair.

Oh, love is the crooked thing,
There is nobody wise enough
To find out all that is in it.
For he would be thinking of love
Till the stars had run away,
And the shadows eaten the moon.
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
One cannot begin it to soon.