Only page of title Very Easy
269
4
Why this and that are thus and so, --
Who made the world in the dark and lit
The great sun up to lighten it:
Boys know new things every day --
When they study, or when they play, --
When they idle, or sow and reap --
But no boy knows when he goes to sleep.
May know that the round old earth rolls East; --
And know that the ice and the snow and the rain --
Ever repeating their parts again --
Are all just water the sunbeams first
Sip from the earth in their endless thirst,
And pour again till the low streams leap. --
But no boy knows when he goes to sleep.
It has been to him since the dawn's first smile,
When forth he fared in the realm divine
Of brook-laced woodland and spun-sunshine; --
He may know each call of his truant mates,
And the paths they went, -- and the pasture-gates
Of the 'cross-lots home through the dusk so deep. --
But no boy knows when he goes to sleep.
From the flagrant drowse on the parlor-floor,
To the pleading voice of the mother when
I even doubted I heard it then --
To the sense of a kiss, and a moonlit room,
And dewy odors of locust-bloom --
A sweet white cot -- and a cricket's cheep. --
But no boy knows when he goes to sleep.
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