Here you will find the Poem Jack-In-The-Box of poet James Whitcomb Riley
_(Grandfather, musing.)_ In childish days! O memory, You bring such curious things to me!-- Laughs to the lip--tears to the eye, In looking on the gifts that lie Like broken playthings scattered o'er Imagination's nursery floor! Did these old hands once click the key That let 'Jack's'box-lid upward fly, And that blear-eyed, fur-whiskered elf Leap, as though frightened at himself, And quiveringly lean and stare At me, his jailer, laughing there? A child then! Now--I only know They call me very old; and so They will not let me have my way,-- But uselessly I sit all day Here by the chimney-jamb, and poke The lazy fire, and smoke and smoke, And watch the wreaths swoop up the flue, And chuckle--ay, I often do-- Seeing again, all vividly, Jack-in-the-box leap, as in glee To see how much he looks like me! ... They talk. I can't hear what they say-- But I am glad, clean through and through Sometimes, in fancying that they Are saying, 'Sweet, that fancy strays In age back to our childish days!'
