_(Grandfather, musing.)_ <br /> <br /> <br />In childish days! O memory, <br />You bring such curious things to me!-- <br />Laughs to the lip--tears to the eye, <br />In looking on the gifts that lie <br />Like broken playthings scattered o'er <br />Imagination's nursery floor! <br />Did these old hands once click the key <br />That let 'Jack's' box-lid upward fly, <br />And that blear-eyed, fur-whiskered elf <br />Leap, as though frightened at himself, <br />And quiveringly lean and stare <br />At me, his jailer, laughing there? <br /> <br /> <br />A child then! Now--I only know <br />They call me very old; and so <br />They will not let me have my way,-- <br />But uselessly I sit all day <br />Here by the chimney-jamb, and poke <br />The lazy fire, and smoke and smoke, <br />And watch the wreaths swoop up the flue, <br />And chuckle--ay, I often do-- <br />Seeing again, all vividly, <br />Jack-in-the-box leap, as in glee <br />To see how much he looks like me! <br /> <br />... They talk. I can't hear what they say-- <br />But I am glad, clean through and through <br />Sometimes, in fancying that they <br />Are saying, 'Sweet, that fancy strays <br />In age back to our childish days!'<br /><br />James Whitcomb Riley<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/jack-in-the-box-3/
