The Little Hair Trunk

There’s a little hair trunk in the attic stored, Under the rafters packed away; With a heart nigh broken, a mother’s hands Tenderly carried it there one day. The tears fell fast as she closed the lid On the homely trinkets--you’ll call them so,-- That her baby loved, then with one more kiss On the little hair trunk, she turned to go.

Now on the lid is the dust of years,-- I wonder what think all the toys within! Do they wish for the baby voice, still so long, To arouse them once more with its boyish din? In the attic I happened to be one day, I couldn’t help taking a tiny peep,-- They were just as he left them, every one,-- Oh, well, perhaps it was foolish to weep!

A bottle of beans (they were yellow and black); He called them his “stock,” which he bought and sold; A “Mother Goose Rhymes”--and his finger prints Were still on its covers, now ragged and old! A “Dinah” doll, without any hair,-- All these I found--the others you know, For perhaps a like little trunk you placed Under the rafters, too, long ago!