HUSH, little ones don't make a noise <br />Pick up your dolls and pick up your toys, <br />Pick up your Teddy Bear, Johnny, now see <br />How quiet a youngster tonight you can be; <br />Daddy will wash up the dishes, while you <br />Quietly sit there to wait till he 's through; <br />Softly about we must tread on tip-toe, <br />Mother is writing a paper on Poe. <br /> <br />What is that noise? It's the scratch of her pen, <br />Mother has locked herself into my den, <br />Gone there to study, to ponder and write, <br />And we must give up all our laughter tonight. <br />Hush, there! Don't giggle. Be still while I sweep <br />And see just how quiet you children can keep. <br />Hey, there, you Johnny, don't romp about so, <br />Mother is writing a paper on Poe. <br /> <br />Come, now, you two-year-old, father will try <br />To put on your nightie and rock you bye, bye; <br />And, Johnny, you sit on the floor and take off <br />Your shoes and your stockings. Look out, don't you cough. <br />Poor kids, you've no mother tonight to undress you, <br />To sing you to sleep and to love and caress you, <br />Just an awkward old daddy, whose fingers are slow, <br />But then mother's writing a paper on Poe. <br /> <br />Oh, literature is a wonderful thing, <br />Of joy and delight a perennial Spring. <br />But gee! it is tough on the kids and their dad, <br />Who think that the evening 's the time to be glad; <br />And sometimes I think that the art is pernicious, <br />And often I wish mother wasn't ambitious, <br />Tonight as I sit here and rock to and fro, <br />All alone, I am cursing that paper on Poe.<br /><br />Edgar Albert Guest<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/literary-mother/
