'll read De Morgan's books;
I'll grow so garrulous I fear you'll write me down a bore;
I'll watch the ways of ants and bees in quiet sunny nooks,
I'll understand Creation as I never did before.
When gossips round the tea-cups talk I'll listen to it all;
On smiling days some kindly friend will take me for a drive:
I'll own a shaggy collie dog that dashes to my call:
I'll celebrate my second youth when I am Sixty-five.

Ah, though I've twenty years to go, I see myself quite plain,
A wrinkling, twinkling, rosy-cheeked, benevolent old chap;
I think I'll wear a tartan shawl and lean upon a cane.
I hope that I'll have silver hair beneath a velvet cap.
I see my little grandchildren a-romping round my knee;
So gay the scene, I almost wish 'twould hasten to arrive.
Let others sing of Youth and Spring, still will it seem to me
The golden time's the olden time, some time round Sixty-five.

From old men to children is but a step, and there too, in the shadow of
the Fontaine de Medicis, I spend much of my time watching the little
ones. Childhood, so innocent, so helpless, so trusting, is somehow
pathetic to me.

There was one jolly little chap who used to play with a large white
Teddy Bear. He was always with his mother, a sweet-faced woman, who
followed his every movement with delight. I used to watch them both,
and often spoke a few words.

Then one day I missed them, and it struck me I had not seen them for a
week, even a month, maybe. After that I looked for them a time or two
and soon forgot.

Then this morning I saw the mother in the rue D'Assas. She was alone and
in deep black. I wanted to ask after the boy, but there was a look in
her face that stopped me.

I do not think she will ever enter the garden of the Luxembourg again.

Teddy Bear

O Teddy Bear! with your head awry
And your comical twisted smile,
You rub your eyes--do you wonder why
You've slept such a long, long while?
As you lay so still in the cupboard dim,
And you heard on the roof the rain,
Were you thinking . . . what has become of _him_?
And when will he play again?

Do you sometimes long for a chubby hand,
And a voice so sweetly shrill?
O Teddy Bear! don't you understand
Why the house is awf'ly still?
You sit with your muzzle propped on your paws,
And your whimsical face askew.
Don't wait, don't wait for your friend . .