Infant

"Babies are the enemies of the human race. . . . Let's consider it this way: by the time the world doubles its population, the amount of energy we will be using will be increased sevenfold which means probably the amount of pollution that we are producing will also be increased sevenfold. If we are now threatened by pollution at the present rate, how will we be threatened with sevenfold pollution by, say, 2010 A.D., distributed among twice the population? We'll be having to grow twice the food out of soil that is being poisoned at seven times the rate."

"BABE or BABY, n. A misshapen creature of no particular age, sex, or condition, chiefly remarkable for the violence of the sympathies and antipathies it excites in others, itself without sentiment or emotion. There have been famous babes; for example, little Moses, from whose adventure in the bulrushes the Egyptian hierophants of seven centuries before doubtless derived their idle tale of the child Osiris being preserved on a floating lotus leaf."

"How lovely he appears! his little cheeks In their pure incarnation, vying with The rose leaves strewn beneath them. And his lips, too, How beautifully parted! No; you shall not Kiss him; at least not now; he will wake soon— His hour of midday rest is nearly over."

"He smiles, and sleeps!—sleep on And smile, thou little, young inheritor Of a world scarce less young: sleep on and smile! Thine are the hours and days when both are cheering And innocent!"

"Look! how he laughs and stretches out his arms, And opens wide his blue eyes upon thine, To hail his father; while his little form Flutters as winged with joy. Talk not of pain! The childless cherubs well might envy thee The pleasures of a parent."

"And though she be but little, she is fierce."

"A grievous burthen was thy birth to me; Tetchy and wayward was thy infancy."

"God mark thee to his grace! Thou wast the prettiest babe that e'er I nursed: An I might live to see thee married once, I have my wish."

"Fie, fie, how wayward is this foolish love That, like a testy babe, will scratch the nurse And presently all humbled kiss the rod!"

"A daughter and a goodly babe, Lusty and like to live: the queen receives Much comfort in 't."

"In any election, only a percentage of the people vote. Those who can't vote because of age or other disqualifications, and those who don't vote because of confusion, apathy, or disgust at a Tweedledum-Tweedledummer choice can hardly be said to have any voice in the passage of the laws which govern them. Nor can the individuals as yet unborn, who will be ruled by those laws in the future."

"But what am I? An infant crying in the night: An infant crying for the light: And with no language but a cry."

"Have you not heard the poets tell How came the dainty Baby Bell Into this world of ours?"

"Oh those little, those little blue shoes! Those shoes that no little feet use. Oh, the price were high That those shoes would buy, Those little blue unused shoes!"

"Lullaby, baby, upon the tree top; When the wind blows the cradle will rock, When the bough breaks the cradle will fall, And down comes the baby, and cradle and all."

"Rock-bye-baby on the tree top, When the wind blows the cradle will rock, When the bough bends the cradle will fall, Down comes the baby, cradle and all."

"Sweet babe, in thy face Soft desires I can trace, Secret joys and secret smiles, Little pretty infant wiles."

"There came to port last Sunday night The queerest little craft, Without an inch of rigging on; I looked and looked—and laughed. It seemed so curious that she Should cross the unknown water, And moor herself within my room— My daughter! O my daughter!"

"Lo! at the couch where infant beauty sleeps; Her silent watch the mournful mother keeps; She, while the lovely babe unconscious lies, Smiles on her slumbering child with pensive eyes."

"He is so little to be so large! Why, a train of cars, or a whale-back barge Couldn't carry the freight Of the monstrous weight Of all of his qualities, good and great. And tho' one view is as good as another, Don't take my word for it. Ask his mother!"

""The hand that rocks the cradle"—but there is no such hand. It is bad to rock the baby, they would have us understand; So the cradle's but a relic of the former foolish days, When mothers reared their children in unscientific ways; When they jounced them and they bounced them, those poor dwarfs of long ago— The Washingtons and Jeffersons and Adamses, you know."

"When you fold your hands, Baby Louise! Your hands like a fairy's, so tiny and fair, With a pretty, innocent, saintlike air, Are you trying to think of some angel-taught prayer You learned above, Baby Louise."

"Baloo, baloo, my wee, wee thing."

"The morning that my baby came They found a baby swallow dead, And saw a something hard to name Fly mothlike over baby's bed."

"What is the little one thinking about? Very wonderful things, no doubt; Unwritten history! Unfathomed mystery! Yet he laughs and cries, and eats and drinks, And chuckles and crows, and nods and winks, As if his head were as full of kinks And curious riddles as any sphinx!"

"When the baby died, On every side Rose stranger's voices, hard and harsh and loud. The baby was not wrapped in any shroud. The mother made no sound. Her head was bowed That men's eyes might not see Her misery."

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience"

"The explosions ceased, the bells stopped ringing, the shriek of the siren died down from tone to tone into silence. The stiffly twitching bodies relaxed, and what had become the sob and yelp of infant maniacs broadened out once more into a normal howl of ordinary terror."

"Sweet is the infant's waking smile, And sweet the old man's rest— But middle age by no fond wile, No soothing calm is blest."

"Suck, baby! suck! mother's love grows by giving: Drain the sweet founts that only thrive by wasting! Black manhood comes when riotous guilty living Hands thee the cup that shall be death in tasting."

"The hair she means to have is gold, Her eyes are blue, she's twelve weeks old, Plump are her fists and pinky. She fluttered down in lucky hour From some blue deep in yon sky bower— I call her "Little Dinky.""

"A tight little bundle of wailing and flannel, Perplex'd with the newly found fardel of life."

"O child! O new-born denizen Of life's great city! on thy head The glory of the morn is shed, Like a celestial benison! Here at the portal thou dost stand, And with thy little hand Thou openest the mysterious gate Into the future's undiscovered land."

"Why can't women just love having babies? Is it too laughable, parochial, bourgeois not to obsess over your career? If there is one thing I wish had been different at my hard, driven, academic school, it's that no one, not a single teacher, said to me: "Look, by the way, there's this thing that might happen in the middle of your life and it's going to be amazing. Make space for it, because it’s going to be a lot, lot better than getting 87 per cent in Latin." But no one ever did."

"A baby was sleeping, Its mother was weeping."

"Her beads while she numbered, The baby still slumbered, And smiled in her face, as she bended her knee; Oh! bless'd be that warning, My child, thy sleep adorning, For I know that the angels are whispering with thee."

"He seemed a cherub who had lost his way And wandered hither, so his stay With us was short, and 'twas most meet, That he should be no delver in earth's clod, Nor need to pause and cleanse his feet To stand before his God: O blest word—Evermore!"

"How did they all just come to be you? God thought about me and so I grew."

"Where did you come from, baby dear? Out of the Everywhere into here."

"Whenever a little child is born All night a soft wind rocks the corn; One more buttercup wakes to the morn, Somewhere, Somewhere. One more rosebud shy will unfold, One more grass blade push through the old, One more bird-song the air will hold, Somewhere, Somewhere."

"And thou hast stolen a jewel, Death! Shall light thy dark up like a Star. A Beacon kindling from afar Our light of love and fainting faith."

"You scarce could think so small a thing Could leave a loss so large; Her little light such shadow fling From dawn to sunset's marge. In other springs our life may be In bannered bloom unfurled, But never, never match our wee White Rose of all the world."

"A sweet, new blossom of Humanity, Fresh fallen from God's own home to flower on earth."

"Wee Willie Winkie rins through the toun, Up stairs and doon stairs in his nicht-goun, Tirlin' at the window, cryin' at the lock, "Are the weans in their bed? for it's now ten o'clock.""

"As living jewels dropped unstained from heaven."

"Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength."

"Beneath the surface, the Giantess reader seems to be a man who longs for his infancy. He looks back fondly at the time he was dwarfed by his mother and scolded for soiling himself. And that's just about the last experience I care to reflect upon. Sure I received a few spankings but I never considered them a high point. I moved ahead and got on with my life. Didn't I?"

"Sweetest li'l' feller, everybody knows; Dunno what to call him, but he's mighty lak' a rose; Lookin' at his mammy wid eyes so shiny blue Mek' you think that Heav'n is comin' clost ter you."

"A little soul scarce fledged for earth Takes wing with heaven again for goal, Even while we hailed as fresh from birth A little soul."

"Beat upon mine, little heart! beat, beat! Beat upon mine! you are mine, my sweet! All mine from your pretty blue eyes to your feet, My sweet!"