 | Rhymes with reason and without |  |
XXVIII.
CHILDREN.
Heavens, the racket! keep those children quiet!The house is trembling all from sill to rafter
Beneath the tumult of their noise and laughter,
While carrying on their small domestic riot.
“Better to have ten rogues than e'er a fool,”
Some one has said, in philosophic way,
And that 's precisely what I often say
To soothe me for their disregard of rule.
“Troublesome comforts” at the best are they,—
But, death-stilled be the music of that tongue
Whose note the loudest through the house hath rung,
And what a cloud has fallen on our day!
Traverse the world, we'll find, where'er we roam,
Few spots more cheerless than a childless home.
| Rhymes with reason and without | |