Poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Ah Goo Tongue

The queerest languages known to man,
Sanscrit, Hebrew, Hindoostan,
Are all translated and made as free
And comprehensive as A B C.

Yet the oldest language talked or sung,
The strange mysterious Ah Goo tongue,
The royal language of Babyland
No man living can understand.

Every soul in the world to-day
Was one time anchored in Babyland Bay,
And quarantined there for a year or more
Before he even could step on shore.

And everybody in Babyland Bay
Talks the Ah Goo tongue, so people say,
But once on land--why not a word
Do they understand of it when 'tis heard.

For the fairy rulers of Babyland
Who guard the kingdom on every hand,
Have willed that no one shall keep the key
Who crosses into the Grown-up Sea.

So the sweet court language has never been made
A common parlance of strife or trade,
But is kept in the kingdom where natives come
Versed in the language of Babydom.

They are all of them royal and that is how
The Grown-up people all kneel and bow,
When they hear that language talked or sung--
The strange mysterious Ah Goo tongue. 

1. The Birth of the Orchid
2. The Call (All wantonly in hours of joy)
3. Be Not Attached
4. Behold the Earth
5. The Black Charger

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