The Toy Strewn Home

By Edgar A. Guest

Give me a home, where the toys are all strewn,
Where the dolls are asleep in the chairs,
Where the building blocks and the toy balloon
And the soldiers guard the stairs.
Let me sleep in a house where the tiny cart
With the horses rule the floor,
And rest comes into my weary heart,
For I am at home once more.

Give me the home with the toys about,
With the battered old train of cars.
The box of paints and the books left out,
And the ship with the broken spars.
Let me sleep in a house at the close of the day
That is littered with childrens toys,
And dwell once more in the haunts of play,
With the echoes of by-gone noise.

Give me a home where the toys are seen,
The house where the children romp,
And I'll happier be than the man has been
'Neath the gilded dome of pomp.
Let me see the litter of bright eyed play
Strewn over the parlor floor,
And the joys I knew in a far off day
Will gladden my heart once more.

Whoever has lived in a toy-strewn home,
Though feeble he be and gray,
Will yearn, no matter how far he roam
For the glorious disarray.
Of the little home with it's littered floor
That was his in by-gone days;
And his heart will throb as it throbed before,
When he rests where a baby plays.