Song for a Fifth Child- Poem

I saw this poem on someone else's blog and I really loved it. It's so true, so fitting... Where does the time go? Why do they have to grow so fast? As Will said to me recently, "Now I know why some people want to keep having babies- the time flies by so fast!"

Song for a Fifth Child

by Ruth Hulburt Hamilton

1958

Mother, oh Mother, come shake out your cloth,
empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
hang out the washing and butter the bread,
sew on a button and make up a bed.

Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She's up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.
Oh, I've grown shiftless as Little Boy Blue (lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due (pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo).
The shopping's not done and there's nothing for stew and out in the yard there's a hullabaloo,
but I'm playing Kanga and this is my Roo.
Look! Aren't her eyes the most wonderful hue?

The cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow,
for children grow up, as I've learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down cobwebs.
Dust go to sleep. I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep.