Life's Lesson No. 3

The Toy Strewn House---author unknown

Give me the house where the toys are strewn

Where the dolls are asleep in the chairs.

Where the building blocks and the toy balloon

And the soldiers guard the stairs;

Let me step in the house where the tiny cart

With its horses rules the floor ,

And the rest comes into my weary heart.

For I am at home once more.

Give me the house with the toys about,

With the battered old train of cars,

The box of paints and the books left out

And the ship with the broken spars;

Let me step in the house at the close of day

That is littered with children's toys,

And dwell once more in the haunts of play

With the echoes of bygone noise.

Give me the house where the toys are seen,

The house where the children romp,

And I'll happier be than man has been

"Neath the gilded dome of pomp."

Let me see the litter of bright-eyed play

Strewn over the parlor floor,

And the joys I knew in a far-off day

Will gladden my heart once more.

Whoever has lived in a toy-strewn home,

Though feeble he be and gray,

Will yearn, no matter how far he roam,

For the glorious disarray

Of the little home with its littered floor

That was his in by-gone days,

And his heart will throb as it throbbed before

When he rests where a baby plays.