There are many things that boys may know-- <br />Why this and that are thus and so,-- <br />Who made the world in the dark and lit <br />The great sun up to lighten it: <br />Boys know new things every day-- <br />When they study, or when they play,-- <br />When they idle, or sow and reap-- <br />But no boy knows when he goes to sleep. <br /> <br />Boys who listen--or should, at least,-- <br />May know that the round old earth rolls East;-- <br />And know that the ice and the snow and the rain-- <br />Ever repeating their parts again-- <br />Are all just water the sunbeams first <br />Sip from the earth in their endless thirst, <br />And pour again till the low streams leap.-- <br />But no boy knows when he goes to sleep. <br /> <br />A boy may know what a long glad while <br />It has been to him since the dawn's first smile, <br />When forth he fared in the realm divine <br />Of brook-laced woodland and spun-sunshine;-- <br />He may know each call of his truant mates, <br />And the paths they went,--and the pasture-gates <br />Of the 'cross-lots home through the dusk so deep.-- <br />But no boy knows when he goes to sleep. <br /> <br />O I have followed me, o'er and o'er, <br />From the flagrant drowse on the parlor-floor, <br />To the pleading voice of the mother when <br />I even doubted I heard it then-- <br />To the sense of a kiss, and a moonlit room, <br />And dewy odors of locust-bloom-- <br />A sweet white cot--and a cricket's cheep.-- <br />But no boy knows when he goes to sleep.<br /><br />James Whitcomb Riley<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/no-boy-knows/
