If fate had held a careless knife
      And clipped one line that drew,
     Of all the myriad lines of life,
      From Eden up to you;
     If, in the wars and wastes of time,
      One sire had met the sword,
     One mother died before her prime
      Or wed some other lord;

     Or had some other age been blest,
      Long past or yet to be,
     And you had been the world's sweet guest
      Before or after me:
     I wonder how this rose would seem,
      Or yonder hillside cot;
     For, dear, I cannot even dream
      A world where you are not!

     Thus heaven forfends that I shall drink
      The gall that might have been,
     If aught had broken a single link
      Along the lists of men;
     And heaven forgives me, whom it loves,
      For feigning such distress:
     My heart is happiest when it proves
      Its depth of happiness.

     Enough to see you where you are,
      Radiant with maiden mirth!
     To bless whatever blessed star
      Presided o'er your birth,
     That, on this immemorial morn,
      When heaven was bending low,
     The gods were kind and you were born
      Twenty sweet years ago!

     A little baby went to sleep
      One night in his white bed,
     And the moon came by to take a peep
      At the little baby head.

     A wind, as wandering winds will do,
      Brought to the baby there
     Sweet smells from some quaint flower that grew
      Out on some hill somewhere.

     And wind and flower and pale moonbeam
      About the baby's bed
     Stirred and woke the funniest dream
      In the little sleepy head.

     He thought he was all sorts of things
      From a lion to a cat;
     Sometimes he thought he flew on wings,
      Or fell and fell, so that

     When morning broke he was right glad
      But much surprised to see
     Himself a soft, pink little lad
      Just like he used to be.

     I would not give this story fame
      If there were room to doubt it,
     But when he learned to talk, he came
      And told me all about it.

     The Old Bad Woman was coming along,
     Busily humming a sort of song.

     You could barely see, below her bonnet,
     Her chin where her long nose rested on it.

     One tooth thrust out on her lower lip,
     And she held one hand upon her hip.

     Then we went to thinking mighty fast,
     For we knew our time had come at last.

     For what we had done and didn't do
     The Old Bad Woman would put us through.

     If you cried enough to fill your hat,
     She wouldn't care; she was used to that.

     Of the jam we had eaten, she would know;
     How we ran barefooted in the snow;

     How we cried when they made us take our bath;
     How we tied the grass across