Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Old Wooden Cradle

Good-bye to the cradle, the dear wooden cradle
  The rude hand of Progress has thrust it aside.
No more to its motion o’er sleep’s fairy ocean,
  Our play-weary wayfarers peacefully glide.

No more by the rhythm of slow-moving rocker,
  Their sweet dreamy fancies are fostered and fed;
No more to low singing the cradle goes swinging--
  The child of this era is put into bed.

Good-bye to the cradle, the dear wooden cradle,
  It lent to the twilight a strange, subtle charm;
When bees left the clover, when play-time was over,
  How safe seemed this shelter from danger or harm.

How soft seemed the pillow, how distant the ceiling,
  How weird were the voices that whispered around,
What dreams would come flocking, as rocking and rocking,
  We floated away into slumber profound.

Good-bye to the cradle, the old wooden cradle,
  The babe of to-day does not know it by sight.
When day leaves the border, with system and order,
  The child goes to bed and we put out the light.

I bow to Progression and ask no concession,
  Though strewn be her pathway with wrecks of the past;
So off with old lumber, that sweet ark of slumber,
  The old wooden cradle, is ruthlessly cast.