Gabrielle and Jean  Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Parental Recollections
by Charles Lamb

A child's a plaything for an hour;
Its pretty tricks we try
For that or for a longer space—
Then tire, and lay it by.

But I knew one that to itself
All seasons could control;
That would have mock’d the sense of pain
Out of a grievèd soul.

Thou straggler into loving arms,
Young climber-up of knees,
When I forget thy thousand ways
Then life and all shall cease.