Childhood Analysis

Childhood, sweet and sunny childhood,

With its careless, thoughtless air,

Like the verdant, tangled wildwood,

Wants the training hand of care.



See it springing all around us --

Glad to know, and quick to learn;

Asking questions that confound us;

Teaching lessons in its turn.



Who loves not its joyous revel,

Leaping lightly on the lawn,

Up the knoll, along the level,

Free and graceful as a fawn?



Let it revel; it is nature

Giving to the little dears

Strength of limb, and healthful features,

For the toil of coming years.



He who checks a child with terror,

Stops its play, and stills its song,

Not alone commits an error,

But a great and moral wrong.



Give it play, and never fear it --

Active life is no defect;

Never, never break its spirit --

Curb it only to direct.



Would you dam the flowing river,

Thinking it would cease to flow?

Onward it must go forever --

Better teach it where to go.



Childhood is a fountain welling,

Trace its channel in the sand,

And its currents, spreading, swelling,

Will revive the withered land.



Childhood is the vernal season;

Trim and train the tender shoot;

Love is to the coming reason,

As the blossom to the fruit.



Tender twigs are bent and folded --

Art to nature beauty lends;

Childhood easily is moulded;

Manhood breaks, but seldom bends.

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