A Flight of Fancies :: :: University of Virginia Library

Wen I was yung and hadunt hares
And didunt nevver say my prares
No more than baby don't upstares
I was a favrit child
But now my nurse keeps saying Loo
Wot kook and gardner fink is troo
A deemuns gone and got in you
And made you wikkid wild.

A NEIGHBOUR

The Lord Almighty chose to give
This hedgehog room enough to live
Upon the world where you and I
Look up to praise Him in the sky.

The Hedgehog clearly understands
The weakness of the little hands
That seem, when he considers all
His work and dangers, very small.

He steadily and strongly grows
A bunch of thorns, to prick the nose
Of any dog that dares attack
The fortress on his rounded back.

If threatened, he applies the rule
They taught him at his Infant School:
He makes a ball of back and chest,
And keeps on hoping for the best.

The Lord Almighty chose to give
The hedgehog room enough to live
Upon the world. I want to add
That I, for one, am very glad.

THE UNHAPPY MONTH

When Uncle was ill for a month at our house
With a terrible pain in his side,
We learned how we loved him, for all of us sobbed,
And even the errand-boy cried.
We crept up to bed without shoes on our feet,
As softly as mice on a floor,
And Mother allowed me—she couldn't do more—
To throw him a kiss through a crack in the door.

And Bess did,
And Jess did.

My Golliwog lived in the cupboard for days
With the Bear and the Geese and the Goat,
For how could I think about toys when I had
Such a sorrowful lump in my throat?

Each evening dear Daddy came up to our room
And bade us do all that we should
For one who had never been other than good,
So I prayed for my Uncle as hard as I could.

And Bess did,
And Jess did.

When Doctors and Nurses decided at last
There was only his strength to regain,
We told all the thrushes and robins and tits
That our Uncle was free from his pain.
One morning we went to the side of his bed,
As Mother and Father had planned.
Just why it was so I can scarce understand,
But I burst into tears when he gave me his hand.

And Bess did,
And Jess did.

DILLY DUCKLING

As Dilly had the splendid luck
Of being born a tiny duck,
It very soon occurred to him
That he should try to swim.

While living in an egg, you see,
He failed to guess what he would be,
And little knew his heart was fond
Already of a pond.

He wasn't much astonished when
He found his mother was a hen;
But after he had watched her long
He felt that she was wrong.

Amazed to see the duckling float,
The hen shrieked “Murder! Fetch a boat!”
While Dilly thought that her distress
Was female fussiness,

And rudely called to her, “Goodbye!
You look so horrid when you cry!
If you are keen to get me back,
Why ever don't you quack?”

AN EXPLANATION

“How intensely interesting!”
Said the Cuckoo. “She is nesting,
And a neater little pipit never flew!
I am tempted to reward her
By supplying such a boarder
As so capable a wife deserves to view.
It may seem a kind of madness
To be anxious for her gladness
At the heavy cost of giving up my own;
But a Cuckoo's not a narrow,
Mean, and self-assertive sparrow,
And her heart is more like putty than like stone.
There is something so appealing
In a pipit, that a feeling,
As of charity neglected day by day,
Would be sure to fret and blame me
Morning, noon, and night, and shame me
If I kept the egg I ought to give away.
Other birds enjoy the blisses
Of exchanging horny kisses
With a family of children in a nest;
They can love them, cuddle, feed them,
Form their manners wisely, read them

All the lessons of the brain and of the breast;
But a Cuckoo, out of tender
Inclination to surrender
What was granted her by Love in days of old,
Has become a creature blighted,
Through her generous heart, and slighted,
Though deserving of a statue made in gold.
When I think of all the twaddle
Active in a human noddle,
And the rubbish I have often overheard,
Need I wonder if those crazy
Men with cameras call me lazy
And a vicious sort of profiteering bird?
Noisy, in and out of season,
They extol their gift of reason,
Yet to none of them the lovely truth is known
That a Cuckoo gives her treasure
To increase a small bird's pleasure,
Since her heart is more like putty than like stone.”

A HOUSEHOLDER

If clouds are torn and hailstones drop
Upon the tender lupin crop,
With solemn earnestness I go
Inside my little bungalow.

I never take, when I retire,
A leaf and read it near a fire,
Because my dwelling-place is not
The sort that has a chimney-pot.

I doubt if you could ever guess
How much I love my loneliness,
Without a saucepan in the house,
A hassock, breadknife, beetle, mouse.

Perhaps a sofa and a rug
May look, in other dwellings, snug,
But furniture can never be
Allowed in mine, because of me.

If weatherbound, I do not fret,
Content to know that I shall get,
When thunder dies, a chance to roam,
Accompanied, of course, by home.

In darkness, having eaten all
The food I need, I mount a wall
And write with silver-coloured ink
Whatever I may chance to think.

If you had had the luck to dwell
Inside a bungalow of shell,
You would have written thus your pale,
Yet captivating, Fairy-tale.

UNCLE

I'm sure no children ever had
An Uncle half so queer as ours.
He doesn't shoot, he doesn't fish,
He doesn't even gather flowers.
We sometimes run like mad and scream
Because a wasp is on his nose;
But Uncle talks to it, and seems
Quite disappointed when it goes.

One day, while we were strolling home
Along the fieldpath near the dell,
He took his cap off to a cow
And asked if she and hers were well.
She looked so cross that Uncle said,
“Perhaps this lady isn't used
To greetings from a gentleman
To whom she's not been introduced.”

On finding brambles with a load
Of berries in a sunny place,
He bared his head and spoke for us
A new and lovely kind of Grace:
“For all the fruit that thou can'st give
To birds, to children, and to men

We thank Thy Maker and our own
In terms of thoughtful love. Amen.”

Last night we sat upon a rug
And whispered till a blackbird flew
Across the lawn to find a twig
Inside a damson, out of view.
For twenty minutes there he sang
Of faith and love at eventide;
And when he finished, Uncle rose,
Arranged his hair, and thus replied:

“Allow me, in my humble way,
To thank you, Sir, for such a treat
As even you, from out a bill
Of genius, hardly could repeat.
The passage, just before the end,
That made me rank you as the birds'
Dark-feathered Shakespeare, was a theme
Beyond the skill of human words.

“Permit me now to introduce
Albreda, Dorothy, and Meg,
Who, being honest, never wish,
As robber maids, to steal an egg.
Through me they thank the golden bill
That sang a history fair and bright
Within the damson. Please accept
Our sterling gratitude. Goodnight!”

He said to me on Thursday, when
I told him I was Twelve, “My dear,

What present will you give to me
For Uncling hard throughout the year?
As household Tiger, I received
Acidulated drops, I know;
But how about my little bill
As Crocodile and Buffalo?”

I'm sure no children ever had
An Uncle half so strange as ours.
He doesn't shoot, he doesn't fish,
He doesn't even gather flowers.
But though he takes our breath away
At times by being odd and queer
And difficult to understand,
He's dearer far than only dear!

THE DAISY'S SERMON FOR CHILDREN

Love all you can
Is an excellent plan
For God's little children,
For woman and man.

Could you agree
To take lessons from me,
How very much gladder
Your Angels would be!

Do you suppose
That a daisybud grows
To die from the treading
Of dozens of toes?

Daisybuds mean
That the Master has been
To fill them with treasure
And wrap them in green.

DIFFICULT

I can't say my prayers.
Mammy's singing downstairs,
And I want to be standing
Outside on the landing.

I can't keep my thought
Upon Heaven, as I ought,
Loving Jesus. I want you
To wait for me. Can't you?

My sisters stand near,
Neither seeming to hear.
Do you mind being busy
With Ada and Lizzie,

And letting me creep
From the room? Will you keep
For a little offender
A look sweet and tender?

THE AUTUMN CLOUD

“I acknowledge I am gloomy,” said the Cloud,
“But I wear the only colour I'm allowed.
If I meet you in your rambles
On the moor in search of brambles,
Though my raindrops want to kiss you
I will do my best to miss you,”
Said the Cloud.

“But, remember, I am Duty,” said the Cloud,
“And neglect of duty cannot be allowed.
What I carry must be shaken
From my bosom, and be taken
By the multitudes that link me
With their nature when they drink me,”
Said the Cloud.

“Next, remember, I am Beauty,” said the Cloud,
“And neglect of beauty cannot be allowed.
I am loveliness for cherries,
Little drops of wine in berries,
And a part of all the swaying

When the wind and wheat are playing,”
Said the Cloud.

“Recollect that I am Wisdom,” said the Cloud,
“And defeat of wisdom cannot be allowed.
If the world were always sunny,
Bees would die for want of honey,
And the corn could never thank me
In a whisper while it drank me.”
Said the Cloud.

THE PICNIC

Carrying hard-boiled eggs and cake and sandwiches of tongue
All along the waspy lane where Hildegarde was stung,
Laughingly I listened while my nieces praised their School's
Only perfect breaker of the two-and-fifty rules.
Mistresses were darlings, or were demons; food was “tosh,”
Nearly every branch of learning died the death as “bosh.”
Hearing this, the local jays determined to retire;
Creepers half way up a bole began to creep up higher;
Nimbleboy, the squirrel, taking fright along with those,
Corkscrewed wildly up a beech with panic-stricken toes.

Possibly believing that, as dread for heart and brain,
Half a dozen toothy dogs were sniffing down the lane,

Sudden flashed from out the fern beside the narrow trail
Master Quickfoot Rabbit, with his powder-puff of a tail.
Careless of the bramble, though it scratched him like a comb,
Headlong up the bank he went to find his earthy home,
There to compliment his legs, and rest awhile in peace,
Thankful not to suffer from a large amount of niece,
Such as tore an Uncle (plainly past his middle bloom)
Roughly from a magazine and sofa in his room.

Ere the hungry children bit the white and gold of eggs
Stinging-nettles feasted on a meal of lanky legs,
Causing bright quotations from the lingo of their School's
Desperate defier of the two-and-fifty rules.
Acid drops with sandwiches, and goose-berries with cake,
Mingled in a careless style, undoubtedly would make
Anguish for an Uncle, yet my every pigtailed friend,
Never stopping to inquire if this and that would blend,

Scornful when I said my blood was running cold with fear,
Thrust a hand in any bag that happened to be near.

Nieces animated by perhaps a thousand jinks
Don't permit their Uncles to indulge in Forty Winks:
Thus it was I found myself, as one opposed to four,
Flattened by a frenzied mass of schoolgirl on the moor.
How they managed to produce mysteriously, at need,
Legs enough to satisfy a wriggling centipede;
How they managed to produce as many arms as legs;
Why they were not tamed at all by sandwiches and eggs;
How it was they left me with a patch or two of hair,
None but they, the huggers and the kissers, can declare.

Suddenly a postman with a bicycle and beard,
Dreading instant murder (it was worse than that) appeared;

Twinkled when I told him I was looking for Police,
Twinkled when I asked him if he knew a cure for niece.
Thereupon the children, who were sobered by the man,
Turned their backs on both of us, and resolutely ran
Fast toward the clump of elms where whortleberries grow,
Coloured, but not shaped, to match the body of a sloe.
Safe perchance for half an hour, I knelt upon the ground,
Hunting for my collar-stud. The thing was never found.

Noses, lips, and fingers stained, the truants brought to me
Berries as refreshing as a cup of Indian tea
Handed, in a garden, by a combed and muslined child,
Neater than a rosebud, and as tame as she was wild.
Chatterboxing homeward up the hillside in a bunch,
Counting all the bruises of the battle after lunch,
Soon we reached the summit, where the wood upon the crest,

Brilliant with the flaming of the glory in the West,
Volleyed bedtime pigeons far across the heath that lay
Lovely with magenta at the drooping of the day.

A GREAT COMPLIMENT

Forasmuch as you have chosen to collect
From the orchard and the garden what you needed,
When you put your heads together to erect
In the double-may a cottage, while I weeded,
And pretended not to know of lovers fitting
Moss to horsehair, by the genius of the bill,
As exponents of the fine ancestral knitting
That so delicately baffles human skill;
Forasmuch as you have flattered me by counting
On my garden as a honeymoony place,
And have trusted me with treasure slowly mounting
To the total that is proper to your race,
I confess that (though my life is full of labours
Such as worry him whose loaf is bought by words)
I am puzzled how to thank my new-come neighbours

As befits the faith of complimentary birds.
I shall never, if I live to grow white-headed
And a fidget when the grass is damp with dew,
See a home of love more wisely built and steadied,
Or a dearer pair of chaffinches than you.

HIS EXAMINATION

“You answered all the questions well,
My brilliant son,” the Badger said;
“That masterly account of Smell
Did double honour to your head.

Not less convincing was the style
In which you spoke of forest fare.
No wonder that your parents smile
And feel repaid for constant care.

The gaining of so many marks
Is proof that now our boy is fit
To seek in coppices or parks
A private hole and live in it.

What's that? You want to dawdle near
This home above the field of corn?
To-morrow, if I find you here,
You'll wish you never had been born!

Your mother and myself have done,
Ungrudgingly by day and night,
Our best to satisfy a son
Conspicuous for his appetite.

Be off! Let foolish men retain
Their sons as long as twenty years,
To cause perplexity and pain,
And set the household by the ears;

But Badgers, who have studied more
Than men can ever hope to know,
Must put a limit to their store
Of love, and change from friend to foe.

Augustus, let me see your tail!
Begin at once your own career,
And, if by any chance you fail,
Don't dare to come and snivel here!”

CONTENT IN FLOWER

I'm Crocus. I am very glad
To be what I was meant to be:
A little orange-coloured lad
Of old and famous family.

My clever teachers sent me up
To daylight from a hidden place,
And ordered me to make my cup
A golden credit to the race.

I found that what I had to do
Contentedly from hour to hour
Was adding to the world a few
Delights as long as I could flower.

I'm Crocus. Here I work and praise,
As Willow, Poplar, Oak and Pine.
Though Beauty has ten thousand ways
Of loveliness, she's glad of mine.

BOBBY'S SECOND POEM

becos I like to play
in a grubby sorterway
I get skolded I carnt never fink
how menny times a day.

asooners I am rich
I shall buy a derty dich
and role about in mudd till I
am blakerer than pich.

HAVE YOU CAUGHT THE MUSIC FALLING FROM THE COUNTRY CALLING OF THE FLOWERS?

Lemon-Scented Mountain-Fern,
Cheddar Pink and Snow-in-Summer,
David's Harp and Bush-to-Burn,
Orange Stonecrop (glorious comer!)
Ploughman's-Spikenard, Traveller's-Joy,
Goat's Rue, Musk, Angelica,
Witch's Thimble, Seaside Oat,
Robin in his Ragged Coat,
Cobweb Houseleek, Feverfew,
Lady's Slipper, soaked in dew,
Self-Heal (for a trifling hurt),
Love-Lies-Lonely, Pennywort.

HAVE YOU HEARD A SONG'S PROCLAIMING IN THE COUNTRY NAMING OF THE BIRDS?

Blackcap (telling such a tale!)
Ridibundus, Yaffle, Brambling,
Barley Bird, and Nightingale,
(He's to set the lovers rambling!)
Tangle Picker, Featherpoke,
Mealy Redpoll, Roseate Tern,
Stonechat, with his pebbly voice,
Whimbrel, Shoveller (take your choice!)
Sea-Pie, Wheatear, Shufflewing
(Sentry looking out for Spring),
Corncrake, rarelier seen than heard,
Redbreast, our Redeemer's bird.

A POINT OF VIEW

“With their heels on the ground
And their brains in the air,
These men,” said an Oak,
“Are but creatures of care;

And as long as they live
In the world upside-down,
Where they love to be odd,
They will fidget and frown.

When I dropped from the tree,
As a youngster, I knew
What was best for a wise
Little acorn to do;

For my mother had said
When she bade me goodbye,
Sink your wits in the ground,
Push your feet to the sky.

I'm a hundred years old,
And I haven't a care,
With my brains in the ground
And my heels in the air.”

LISTEN!

Before we arrive at the wood near the stream,
With a wickerwork basket to fill,
For Grannie, because she is kept in the house
By her legs, which are terribly ill,
I want you to promise me neither to kick
The enchantingly beautiful face
Of a hyacinth angel, nor roughly to tread
With the soles of your shoes on the arm of a fern
Or the wood-sorrel's exquisite head.

Be certain that hyacinths never were made
To be carelessly murdered, my Dear,
By greedy consumers of loveliness lent
To remind us that Wisdom is near.
If all of us tenderly think of the hours
When the Saviour stands deep in a wood
And nods to the smile of the primroses there,
We never shall willingly bruise or destroy
What can lessen the load of His care.

THE BOY AND THE BEE

How many times do you intend
To cross the lawn, my busy friend?

Obedience tells me that the price
Of every load is crossing twice.

The Clover's patient, but her breast
Is ready for an hour of rest.

I hear her begging me to stay
And kiss her in the usual way.

Why toil from morn till night? Be brave!
A servant's better than a slave.

Suppose a star refused to run!
Half-holidays would spoil a sun.

But other bees will cause to thrive
Your sugary larder in the hive.

Disgraceful! Would you have me shirk
The ancient discipline of work?

A little leisure could not harm
The toilers of the honey-farm.

A little leisure is the door
That opens on the path to more.

You vex me. Take the homeward track
And leave me lying on my back.

Although your Mother's raking stones
Along the border? Such are drones!

DOUBLE DELIGHT

I have an Uncle, who can rhyme
At almost any time.
He's married to my youngest Aunt,
Who can't.

But she can play the hardest piece
Of music for her niece,
That seems to gallop on the page
In rage.

It's very nice when Uncle strokes
His head, to bring the jokes,
And makes the bees of magic come
And hum.

But Auntie gives me more delight
When, popping in at night,
She lets me stroke upon the bed
Her head.

THE WIZARD

“My boots are getting tired of feet,”
Said Uncle. “Let us take a seat
Upon the hot and shining grass
In hope of seeing lizards pass;
For lizards commonly reside
In places that are countrified,
Where lofty woods of heather raise
Their branches in a perfect maze,
And where they frequently surprise
A buzzing Parliament of Flies.

The more I think of them, the less
I seem to understand them, Bess!
For instance, if a lizard's tail,
Through crime or carelessness, should fail,
How does he manage to produce
A new edition for his use,
With not a servant, not a friend,
To help him bring about this end?
The reason why he never smokes,
Or packs his head with silly jokes,
Is one that all of us can spy
With but a quarter of an eye.

Yet when in wonderment we stand,
His termination in our hand,
And feel that he will hardly care
A fig to lose a thing so fair
(Because he knows that he can find
A way of blossoming behind),
We one and all completely fail
To solve the Mystery of the Tail.

Your favourite soldier, Captain Preece,
Returned, but left a leg in Greece.
Can he, or Major-General Grant,
Repair the loss by growth? He can't;
And since a lizard, old or young,
Has other uses for his tongue
Than blabbing secrets that have lain
For countless centuries in the Brain
That rules as strongly as of yore
Its coloured children on the moor,
It follows that a lizard's plan
Will never be a help to Man,
Who's bound to say, with deep concern,
The leg that's off will not return.

So, Bess, we see that Nature means
To vary in her different scenes;
And even for the tribe in which
We struggle onward, poor and rich,
To use, however small the range,
Her master instrument of Change.
Likeness, wherever seen, is such

As shows unlikeness, whether much
Or little. Let us now compare
Your own with Auntie Ada's hair—
Resemblances that almost meet
As likenesses, yet incomplete.
Or choose to-morrow any rose—
Quick, Darling! See him? There he goes,
The colours flashing on his mail,
Along—Why, Bess, he's lost his tail!”

SHOCKING!

“To tell the truth,” said Mrs. Hen,
“I don't think very much of men.

It's true they give me corn to eat,
But truer that they lie and cheat.

They run on knickerbockered legs,
With ugly boots, to steal my eggs,

And make me, with deceitful words,
Adopt as mine another bird's.

I'm cross with ducks. To think that they
Should dare to copy what I lay!

It's quite astonishing to see
How sharp these criminals can be.

When ducks and men together plot,
How small a chance a hen has got!

I saw my sister, hanging slack,
Without a feather on her back,

From Jim the Ploughboy's hand to-day.
Imagine it! Is that the way

To use a creature who has done
Her quiet best for everyone?

Now, Sally, Sensible, and Ruff,
I feel that this is quite enough

To tell you why,” said Mrs. Hen,
“I don't think very much of men.”

THE COMPLAINT

It's only half a joy
To be a human boy.

He's taken to a den
Of domineering men
And told that Ethelred
(How valuable!) is dead.
He passes further on
To learn the date of John,
With various kinds of bosh
Connected with the Wash;
Or how the monarch pined
Because of what he signed
While sitting in the hay
At Runnymede one day.
From week to week he hates
More bitterly the dates,
The Treaties and the Bills
Of royal Jacks and Jills
Not even fit to rule
A village Infant School.
He often sits and writes
Of equatorial sights,
Explaining why his own

Is not a Torrid Zone,
And where the heathen glut
Themselves with coco-nut,
Or spend an afternoon
In cooking a baboon.

At other times perhaps
He's driven mad by maps
Of lakes and river-beds
And puzzling watersheds
Before he's given a sum
That makes his brainpan hum,
And causes him to wish
To be a bird, or fish,
Or even—such his load
Of killing work!—a toad
Untroubled by a thought
Of what the merchant bought
At eighteen pence, but sold
For half an ounce of gold,
If cannibals forgot
To boil him in a pot.

The young gorilla knows
The number of his toes,
And where to find a bunch
Of appetising lunch.
Imagine what he'd think
If put to pen and ink
And told to fix the spot
Of some recurring dot!

The hairy boy would swing
A club like anything
And break it on the head
Or chest of him who said,
While pointing to a bench,
Prepare that page of French,
Or badgered him to spell
Egyptian parallel!

The young gorilla's school
Is green and beautiful,
Without a trace of men's
Destructive fountain-pens.
It's one gigantic room
Of stem and leaf and bloom,
With dinners neatly hung
On boughs for old and young.
His father does not spend
Bananas on a friend
Who's willing to annoy
His energetic boy
With lessons in return
For fruit he's glad to earn,
But teaches him to get
The forest Alphabet
By heart as soon as he
Can manage A.B.C.
When certain that the youth
Is ready for the truth
Of Nature in the wild,
He liberates the child

And lets him roam at will
The jungle on the hill
To find and pick a bunch
Of breakfast or of lunch.

It's only half a joy
To be a human boy.

EARLY LAMBS

“The pasture-field is gay with lambs
In love,” said Governess, “with dams
Who give them, when they want to feed,
The drink of milk they often need.

It's not at all an easy thing
To be a lamb, before the Spring,
With pluck enough to wag a tail
Defiantly at snow and hail.

Each woolly ulster is as wet
As buttercups and daisies get
When sulky sunbeams will not try
With lips of fire to drink them dry.

But later, when the clouds have shed
The total of their tears on head
And flinching shoulder, back, and side,
The lambs are deeply gratified,

And leap toward the sun, as though
They want to kiss him for the glow
He spreads upon the grassy school
Of little scholars dressed in wool.

Grown stronger, they begin to run
A field or two away in fun,
As he, the four-legged Scatterbrain,
We met just now in Gipsy Lane.

Unlike the tunnel-making mole
(Too earnest to forget his hole),
The heedless and mercurial lamb
Will lose himself, his field, his dam.

Although he butts a fleecy wedge
Of forehead through the hawthorn hedge,
He doesn't stop to memorise
The hole's position, sort, and size.

What desolation follows! What
Bewildered rushing past the spot
That only half an hour ago
He made himself, yet doesn't know!

In awkward haste, the peril past,
He blunders back to love at last,
And helps himself to milk, and drinks
A great deal better than he thinks.

No doubt Elizabeth and Jim,
If wise enough to study him,
Could learn a lesson. But I won't
Be sharp or grumpy if they don't!”

“Good morning, Toadflax!” I began,
While looking where to put my feet—
A highly recommended plan—
For fear of bruising any sweet
Associate of the flax. “I vow
That when my arms and legs depart
Your loveliness shall be, as now,
A temple for a feeling heart.

“I do not slowly murder bloom
That takes my fancy in the wild,
And let it dwindle in a room,
As though it were a sickly child.
I want to breathe it for a time,
To learn a lesson, read a soul,

Convey the flower to rustic rhyme,
And leave it, as I found it, whole.”

The Toadflax bent his gracious head,
As if to bless me. There I lay
And felt how truly I was fed
By undestroying holiday.
At last I rose, but ere I went
Toward my home I thanked the flower
Wholeheartedly for having lent
So much to me for half an hour.

TWO GIFTS

Tall on a mound in Paradise,
The Father scanned with earnestness
The new—made wonder that his love
And wealth and skill desired to dress.
“The growing-time has come to pass,”
Said God; and Earth was bright with Grass.

Watching the flowerless leagues of green,
The Daisies on the mound began
To beg that some of them might go
To sit in fields and wait for Man.
“Your travelling-time has come to pass,”
Said God; “improve my gift of Grass.”

JOY

Only a stable could be found
At Christmastide to shelter them;
Only a yard or two of ground
Beneath that roof in Bethlehem;
Yet Mary, on a bed of straw,
Was neither cold nor comfortless,
Since breathing near her heart there lay
God's love as Human Littleness.

Oxen were holy in her sight,
And well she knew the manger shone
Lovely with such mysterious light
As only mothers look upon.
When Joseph grieved because she fared
Without her friends at Nazareth
She smiled, and, listening for the sound
Of baby breathing, held her breath.

A FRIEND IN NEED

“I think this sum will break my heart,”
Said Ada to the yellow rose
That tapped upon the pane, as if
To bid her not to ink her nose.
“The rabbit died through being fed
With heaps of grass by Jane and Dick,
And Governess is killing me,
By inches with Arithmetic.

“I can't imagine why she cares
A single farthing when she's told
How many stupid ounces make
In copybooks a ton of gold.
As if it matters, when I hear
The yelping of the terrier pups,
Or when the fields beside the stream
Are busy with their buttercups!”

On saying this, she bumped her head
Upon the table in despair,
And littered the untidy page
With webs of barley-coloured hair.
Her shoulders quivered, and her toes
Were furious in her little shoes

Because of all the lovely fun
That multiplying made them lose.

“Ada, my Darling,” said a voice,
“Two heads are better far than one
When problems of Arithmetic
Or French or Parsing must be done.”
The worried scholar raised her head,
And almost shouted in surprise
At being kissed upon her mouth,
Her cheeks, her dimple, and her eyes.

Between the inkwell and the book,
Her wings composed of living lace,
Her frock as blue as heaven, there stood
A Fairy with a helping face!
She showed a tiny silver pen,
And laughed, and said that she had come,
On hearing human sobs, to work
The pounds and ounces of the sum.

She squared her elbows, and began
To drive the pen with all her might.
Three minutes later she had drawn
A line beneath the answer. Right!
On Ada's dimple, lips, and eyes
Her kisses fell as fast as rain;
And then she vanished. She had gone
To soothe another puzzled brain.

RUPERT RABBIT

Now, Geraldine and Lance and Nell,
If you have time, and want to hear
Of Rupert Rabbit, I can tell
The startling points of his career.

Rupert was foolishly inclined
To think that tender brains suffice.
He rarely listened to his kind
Old father's excellent advice.

He used to edge away, as though
The lecture kept him from a walk,
And whisper to his cousin, “Joe,
What balderdash these parents talk!”

One evening, when he plainly showed,
By flapping ears and vacant look,
Less rabbit-reverence than he owed,
The father called his son to book:

“Before you hurry off to bite
Those carrots near the onion-bed
I wish to know if you are quite
Aware of all that I have said.

Imagine how my heart is wrung,
And what your loving mother feels,
When any of our heedless young
Are carried pieward by the heels!

Once more I tell you clearly what
Neglecting our example means:
A flash! a bang! a deadly shot!
Enamel saucepans! soup tureens!”

“My dear old Dad,” his son replied,
“We youngsters have a better plan
(Extremely safe and simplified)
Than yours of circumventing Man.

I freely own that you are most
Attentive and affectionate;
But, Daddy, you have missed the post!
You're cobwebbed, moss-grown, out-of-date!

Be positive that if you wave
The younger School of Rabbits by
There's nothing known on earth to save
Your joints from hotting in a pie!”

“How many a lad,” his father said,
“Who ought to be a model son,
Mistakes his unimportant head
For that of clever Solomon!

Your mother, if she likes, may still
Exhort and plead and argufy,
But, Boaster, I have said my fill.
We shall not have you long. Goodbye!”

His father flourishes, my Dears,
But Rupert's hanging (run and look!)
With blinded eyes and deafened ears
In Grannie's larder from a hook!

WHAT AUNTIE SAID

Your Father is extremely fond
Of going to his private pond
And pulling out such fairy-fish
As never lie upon a dish
In solemn rows, with parsley spread
Beside a tail, beside a head.
All trespassers would seek in vain
To fish the pond of Father's brain,
Since none could climb the fence of bone
That keeps the pond his very own,
And use, as he, the proper weight
And sort of appetising bait.
He carries over Frolic Hill
The rod of work, the line of skill,
The hook of thought. With clever care
He lays upon the bank a pair
Of what so many children wish—
Those silver-sided fairy-fish
With fins as perfect as their scales,
And brightness even in their tails.
Thus, frequently, he goes beyond
The Hill of Frolic to the pond
Where no one else, however fine,
However big, can cast a line.

Then, happy in his faded coat,
He watches hour by hour the float,
Prepared to sit with Trust and wait
For bobbing fish to nose the bait.
You children always think he ought
To show the fish as soon as caught,
But, being tired, he often goes
To have a game of dominoes
With Mother in the little room
Where Rest and Love and Quiet bloom
When Evening, gentler than a mouse,
Becomes the mistress of the house.
Be patient! In a month or two
Your Father means to print for you
A hundred pages, all in rhyme,
About his luck at fishing-time.
Then clap your hands! Then rush to look
At what his basket (that's a book)
Contains for you to eat with eyes
Astonished to a larger size!

COLUMBUS

Columbus, long and long ago
You bravely left behind
The Star of Home, and went to seek
As much as you could find.

I wonder, Captain, if you waved
To children on the quay
A hand that many flooded eyes
Were far too wet to see.

I wonder if your own were wet,
And if a gust of pain
Was almost strong enough to drive
The ship to port again.

As though you heard a Spirit count
The islands of the West,
You steered away from Love, and dared
The grieving of your breast.

But often in that fretted realm
Of running hills and vales,
When Hope was dying in the ship,
And Fury burst the sails;

When Land, which once had been a faith,
Was scarce a happy dream,
You must have longed for paper boats
And children by a stream.

While Memory in her cabin sought
To turn your heart from Care,
The gold you most desired to touch
Was little children's hair.

Columbus, long and long ago
You steered from home; to find
Americas too poor to pay
For wealth you left behind.

THE NEW WORD

(Nurse)
Well, I declare!
I never saw such hair!
Your nose is inked,
Your dress is crumpled,
And both your cheeks
Look red and rumpled.
Not very long ago
I made you nice and clean.
Where—in—the—world,
Miss Ada, have you been?

(Ada)
I don't much care
About my hair,
So there!
Or even if my nose
Is black as crows.
And isn't this the dress
You said last night
Was very little more
Than just a fright—
Too short, too tight?

(Nurse)
Perhaps. But, come,
I want to know
How such a wild,
Disastrous child,
With all those knots
Of tangled hair,
With one arm scratched
And both knees bare,
Contrived to look
As though a witch
Had flung her over
Hedge and ditch.

(Ada)
I've had the loveliest game
You ever heard!
And Uncle's been and
Gone and made
For me a special word!
It isn't in a book,
However close you look;
A baby time ago
It wasn't born, you know.
Because you're never rough
And slappy, Nurse, I mean
To let you be the third
To hear my special word.
I've been affectioneering—

(Nurse)
You've—been—what?

(Ada)
I've been AFFECTIONEERING
With Uncle in his lair.
I kissed him when a bison,
I kissed him when a bear,
I rolled him on the hearthrug,
I nipped him with the tongs,
I made him promise me to write
A lot of fairy-songs—
The sort that tinkle-tinkle-tink
So nicely in his Think
Before they stand in lovely lines
Of letters made with ink.

(Nurse)
Small wonder, Dear,
You look so red and queer!
I realise that games
With Uncle James—
Who seems a gentleman
As full of fun and tricks
As though at fifty-four,
His heart was only six—
Begin with tongs
And end with fairy-songs,
But Joy must share the time
With soap as well as rhyme,

And little children's faces
Be cleaner than disgraces.
So, march upstairs with me
And try your best to be,
By using sponge and brush and comb,
A credit to a Christian home.

THE SNOWDROP AND THE CHILD

I cannot stay
Beyond my day.
There's a Master underground
Who keeps calling me away.

He lets me show
This cup of snow,
To remind the human breast
Of divinity below.

While here I learn
Your love, I earn
Both the bliss of holiday
And the beauty of return.

If fingers break
My stalk, they take
Only something that my Lord
Is determined to re-make.

Both how and why
He lends me sky
For so short a part of Spring,
Ere I seem to you to die,

Is secrecy
For you, for me.
He is wisdom without end,
And He knows what ought to be.

Believing this,
I take the kiss
Of my sweethearts, sun and wind,
For a month of earthly bliss.

But when my gown
Is turning brown,
I, who lately travelled up,
Must begin to travel down.

Be ready, Dear,
For love next year.
There's a Master underground,
And He means to send me here.

KNOWLEDGE

While I moved across the down,
Holding Mother's lilac gown,
I was wondering what she meant
When she told me I was sent
To be her consolation.

Then, I lived upon the bliss
Of her handclasp and her kiss,
Unaware that I bestowed
Any lessening of the load
That often made her weary.

Now, upon the ancient down,
Little fingers hold my gown,
Teaching what my Mother meant
When she told me I was sent
To be her consolation.

THE THREE ANGELS

“While the children sit and think,”
Said the Angel of the Pink,
“Working hard at baby sums
With their fingers and their thumbs,
Flowers can watch a butterfly
Draw upon the summer sky
Such a pattern as would take
Even me an hour to make.”

“While the children tap their toes,”
Said the Angel of the Rose,
“Crossly underneath the bench
Where they almost die of French,
Warbling tutors sweetly tell
Naked scholars why a shell
(Good for keeping out the dew)
Cracks conveniently in two.”

“While the children, after dusk,”
Said the Angel of the Musk,
“Worry Uncles to invent
Giants for their merriment,

Far away in heavenly plots
Pansies and forget-me-nots
Kiss the feet of Him whose birth
Gave the fairest flower to Earth.”

RATHER STRANGE

I often wish I could have been
A Squirrel in a home of green,
And kept a Bank of nuts, and run
Along a bough to teach my son
The art of using as a sail,
And balancing, his new-born tail.

I shouldn't like, upon the whole,
To be a subterranean Mole
And work extremely hard to found
A little London underground,
With Blackham Place, and Lightless Square,
And Tubes containing stuffy air.

But frequently I want to be
An equatorial Chimpanzee
At home among the forest fruit,
Attired in such a shaggy suit
As Esau, who was fond of hair,
Was never privileged to wear.

Of course I never wish to make
A change to Thirty Feet of Snake,

And hang with loops of death in trees,
In wicked readiness to squeeze
Their life and love and simple hopes
From unsuspecting Antelopes!

It's rather strange that when a Niece
And Nephew come to break my peace
I never fret to wear the shape
Of Squirrel, Albatross, or Ape,
But merely want to have my joy
As half a Girl and half a Boy.

LEAVING HOME

He wandered away from his telescope,
Sat heavily down, and began to mope.

“Mechanical fliers will reach me soon,
I gravely fear,” said the Man in the Moon.

“Deserting their shops and their pavingstones,
The trams and the trains and the telephones,

The bomb, the cannon, the ship and the wreck,
They are looping the Loop of the Broken Neck.

I used to whistle, as merry as June,
And live as I liked,” said the Man in the Moon.

“I used to bubble and chuckle with mirth
Because of the fussing and clatter on Earth,

And laugh aloud at the fierce and the bold,
Unable to dig for my magical gold,

Or tear the web of the hammock I fetch
At times from a silvery box, and stretch

To make a swing, or a beautiful bed
When melody sounds in my dreaming head.

I fainted once, when a beast of a cow
Jumped over my Moon (I shall never guess how),

But what if an aeroplane, carrying ten
Be-goggled and greasy mechanical men,

Alights in the cabbages, knocks them flat,
And turns to water the heart of the cat?

It's time for the packing of bags. I'll go
And chum with a comet I used to know.

I'll gather my goods and be off by noon,
And puzzle them all,” said the Man in the Moon.

THE WARWICKSHIRE AVON

Many mighty rivers run,—
Mississippi, Amazon,—
Faster than he travels here
Through his darling Warwickshire.
Many rivers roar their way
Downward to a giant bay,
Unaware that he, the small,
Gentle-voiced, is best of all.

Only eager babes as yet,
Tiny tributaries fret
Past the home of upland wheat,
Marigold and meadowsweet,
Till as bosom-friends they glide
Through the pasture side by side,
Very proud of moving down
Solemnly to Stratford Town.

Loved for many a quiet pool,
Thames and Tweed are beautiful;
Loved for many a poet's song,
Living yet, they flow along

Fair and proud; but Avon lipped
Fingers that were idly dipped
Long ago when Shakespeare sat
Close beside him. Think of that!

HIS GRATITUDE

The Fern (Who knows his name in French?)
Was just beginning to unclench
His little furry fist,
To play with drops of dew and learn
How quietly the dewdrops turn
From water into mist.

At first he grew as if he thought
The world was something to be fought;
But now he plainly sees
That what with diligence he grows
Is neither luncheon for the crows
Nor breakfast for the bees.

He found that he could safely hang
Above the dimpling Brook, that sang
Regardless of applause,
And kissed the heifer's feet, and showed
A moorhen on the running road
That ran without a pause.

November came. Within the Brook
His likeness wore a browner look

Than he had seen of old.
He understood that Loveliness
Was slowly giving for a dress
Of green a dress of gold.

Before he vanished underground
He thanked the World where he had found
Content in sun and mist,
And told the Brook that in the Spring
He meant to come again and bring
His little furry fist.

HER WEARY FATHER

If I had time to play with you
In your imaginary Zoo,
My bonny Treasure,
I'd imitate a flopping seal,
Or utter a baboony squeal,
At once with pleasure.

But I was caught from nine till six
In London's trap of fog and bricks
And furious fusses.
I bounded swiftly, like an ape,
From street to gutter, to escape
The omnibuses.

I'm far more tired than I can tell
Of all the complicated smell,
Pianos, taverns,
The crowd of frocked and trousered moles
That fill, as ants their smaller holes,
Electric caverns.

St Paul may have a splendid dome,
Yet what is that compared with home

And Mother's laughter,
And pansies in a bowl, and you
(Forgetful of a kangaroo),
And bedtime after?

Excuse me if I cannot feel
A wish to represent a seal
With movements floppy.
I love the creature's clever mind,
But, in its way of walking, find
It hard to copy.

To-morrow I will try to be
A buffalo or chimpanzee,
Or such a leopard
As, forced by several appetites,
Is just as happy if he bites
A sheep or shepherd.

But now I want to hear you read
Those verses telling how a weed
Besought a Fairy
To change her to a hedgeside rose,
That Love might stand upon his toes
To kiss her, Mary.

AN APPEAL

My name is Snowdrop. If you think
That I would rather be a Pink,
Believe me, I shall not be long
In pointing out that you are wrong.

My duty is to be content
With what the brain of Wisdom meant
When little Snowdrops first began
Their simple partnership with Man.

At School, beneath a roof of mould,
I learned the Alphabet of Cold,
And gained the confidence to show
My slender self to Frost and Snow.

'Tis plain that all who love me best
Will treat me as a darling guest,
And let me watch the Crocus, damp
With many dewdrops, trim his lamp.

But those whose pleasure is to tug
A flower in two and fill a mug
With fainting beauty, quick to see
A floral lamb, may capture me,

And in a glass or china grave
(Detestable to blossom!) save
The flower that never wants to roam
An inch beyond her tiny home.

Mercy, who's sweet as Mignonette,
Dear Children, begs of you to let
Me spend the night with stars, and not
Inside a tumbler, mug, or pot.

On waking up to-morrow, dress
In coloured leaves your loveliness,
Protect your toes with shoes, and run
To watch me bathing in the sun.

Remember, I am glad to show,
As Love arranged, my drop of snow,
And never, never, NEVER think
With stupid envy of a Pink.

THE EVANGELIST

Away with pen! Away with ink!
Come quickly (though I think
The pillow of the bed
Is eager for your head)
Along the passage, through the door,
My Pansy in a pinafore!
Uplift, console, and bless
A weary verseman with your loveliness,
Who's tired by staring hard at words
In songs of rivulets and birds,
And tired by bending over nouns
So long with puzzled frowns
Because his brain desired to give
To each a haunting adjective!
Since tea he might have had,
Instead of prison and a blotting-pad,
The concentrated garden that is styled
(There's heaven in the name) a Child;
And yet the fever in a tune
Robbed him of hours of June.
But now, ere Sleep has webbed and caught
Her truant, let his anxious thought
Refuse to flow along the line
Of old-man's-beard and eglantine;

And let him, thinking how he kissed
Last night the same Evangelist,
Prepare to welcome at the door
A playmate in a pinafore,
And run about his brain to find
Another story of the glowing kind
That fills with buds of thought
The many secret gardens of her mind.

THREE INVITATIONS

“I am waiting, Little Children,” said the Breeze,
“I am waiting for the tangles of your hair.
I will show you how I play with the merry jets of spray,
And will teach you half the boldness that I dare.
In the winter you may dally
Near a village of a valley
Where the robins puff their scarlet in the trees;
But in summer bring you voices
Where the Sea-side wind rejoices
When he drives the breakers in to hug your knees.”

“Come and frolic, Little Children!” cried the Sand,
“Come and frolic on the playground I have spread
With the colour that is worn by the Crocus, when he's born
With a lamp of beauty blazing on his head.

While the porter down the narrow
Gangway guides the loaded barrow,
And your Father puts a shilling in his hand,
Take your seats for fun and freckles,
Sidmouth, Aberdovey, Beccles,
Or some other golden-coasted edge of land!”

“I am waiting, Little Children,” cried the Sea,
“For my Williams, Robins, Dorothys, and Megs;
For the castle and the moat, for the two-foot cargo-boat,
And the friendliness of fat and busy legs.
When you bring your welcome faces
From the far-off inland places,
With a dozen times a dozen sorts of glee,
I shall thunder on the shoulders
Of the tough and giant boulders,
And shall roar my satisfaction to the quay!”

BEDTIME

Joy is drooping, day is done,
Rest must follow after.
Mount the staircase one by one,
Wearied out by laughter.
Bees have left the lily-bloom,
Butterflies the roses;
Thankful for his leafy room,
Rob-in-Scarlet dozes.

Dream is busy in the land!
Little shutters, falling
Over eyes that understand
Weariness is calling,
Clearly tell how Sleep, to gain
What by day she misses,
Glides toward the counterpane,
Steals a thousand kisses.

A POEM FOR PRUE

Bound, Hare, bound!
Here's a bully with a hound.
If you'd really rather not
Smell delicious in a pot,
Over briar and streamlet vault,
Far from pepper, far from salt,
Till at last your toothy foe
Cannot see which way you go.
Bound, Hare, bound!
Here's a bully—
Yes, a bully with a yard or two of hound.

Look, Salmon, look!
Here's a bully with a hook.
If it's really not your wish
Soon to decorate a dish,
Don't, by playing tug-of-war,
Help this man to carry more
Silvered beauty home, and bite
Far too much of it at night.
Look, Salmon, look!
Here's a bully—
Yes, a bully with a minnow on his hook.

Back, Fox, back!
Here are bullies in a pack.
If you really want to be
Safe at home in time for tea,
Bid your pads and brain and breath
Hold you half a mile from Death
Hunting you since middle-day
All along your twisty way.
Back, Fox, back!
Here are bullies—
Here are bullies with a horsey-doggy pack.

Run, Rabbit, run!
Here's a bully with a gun.
If you really dread to lie
Close to onions in a pie,
Quit that turnip, and begin
Legging homeward with the skin
Just as dear, of course, to you,
Powderpuff, as hers to Prue.
Run, Rabbit, run!
Here's a bully—
Yes, a bully with a cartridge in his gun.

SUN AND DAUGHTER

“What's in front of me to-day
Is the browning of your hay,
Daugther leagues and leagues away.
Not a single wisp of cloud
Can at present be allowed.
Smile, and make your Father proud,”
Said the Sun.

“When I use my summer heat
For the browning of your wheat,
Daughter troublesome but sweet,
Dress in meadow-green, and dare,
Laughing merrily, to wear
All the freckles I can spare,”
Said the Sun.

“Later, when your work is slack,
Nod a welcome to the stack,
Drop the fork, unbend the back.
But my duty is to go
Through the spinneys, there to throw
Fire on crab and nut and sloe,”
Said the Sun.

“What remains for me when cramp
Frets the farmer, cold and damp,
Digging near the turnip-camp,
Is to shake a golden fist
Angrily at Frost and Mist
Till your mouth again is kissed,”
Said the Sun.

“But the Crocus may be sure
I shall help him to endure,
Energetic, brave, and pure;
And the Snowdrop shall not fail,
Though the bullets of the hail
Whiz around her in the gale,”
Said the Sun.

HILDA

Hilda remembers very well
Her feelings on that April morn
When, scrambling from a ruined shell,
Regulus Quack, her son, was born.

Hilda, the hen, was petrified
(Within a little) when she saw
So much that seemed to stagger Pride,
As well as Justice, Hope, and Law.

Maternal hens, who love to hoard
Their eggs for several weary weeks,
Consider it a poor reward
If bills arrive instead of beaks.

She found it difficult to bless
A child without the standard nose,
And one—to add to her distress—
Deprived of regulation toes.

But when she met the duckling's eyes,
And saw him give a tiny start
Of apprehension, or surprise,
She solved the mystery in her heart.

At times a hen is just as quick
Of understanding as a cat;
And Hilda said, “A proper chick
Would never look at me like that.

“I noticed how, on hearing cluck
The child was taken quite aback;
For being by descent a duck
He manifestly wanted quack.”

Then Hilda, thinking it unkind
To scold, or make a silly fuss,
Began to do her best to find
A bit of love for Regulus.

THREE OF THEM

You ought to see my Cousin
Making poems on the Moor!
Last week he wrote a dozen,
To-day he's written four.
There's one about the actions
Of boys and girls who cry
Because of Vulgar Fractions
They fail to simplify;
And one about a Fairy,
Who turned the milk to gold
In any farmer's dairy,
If he were poor and old;
And one about the danger
Of Him who looked and smiled
At oxen in the Manger—
The Christmas Morning Child.

NODDING AND KISSING

May is ready now to give
All her varied wealth to June:
Baby rabbit, infant rushes,
Marigolds, and pupil thrushes,
Cloud, and stars, and milkwhite moon.
Never think that May is sad
Thus at last to end her reign.
She, instead of tearful grieving,
Nods farewell to us, believing
Time will nod to her again.

June must now agree to give
All her wealth to young July:
Gloves for foxes, fledgling swallow,
Candid hilltop, secret hollow,
Nightjar, broom, and butterfly.
Never think that June is sad
Thus to end her lovely reign.
She, instead of tearful grieving,
Throws the world a kiss, believing
Time will kiss her home again.

OUT OF PAIN

While Mary lay alone in bed
One windy afternoon
Toward the end of what had been
For her a dreary June,
The tulips that were woven thick
Upon the counterpane
Stood up and blossomed in her sight,
Then turned to cloth again!

A human child had never seen
As many as a score
Of tulips that were needlework
Behaving thus before.
“How very comforting of you
To play with me,” she said,
“Exactly when a giant pain
Is noisy in my head!”

Immediately a blossom rose,
The leader of the rest,
With sunbeams in his cup, and stood
Alive on Mary's breast;

And each enchanted tulip then
(No longer merely thread,
But rooted in the counterpane)
Made magic on the bed.

“All flowers,” the Leader cried, “should love
Companion flowers, and be,
When tender-hearted Fairies let
Them show their sympathy,
Such consolation as a Nurse
Or Doctor cannot find
In book or bottle, word or kiss,
In hand, in heart, in mind.

“The Tulips of the coverlet
Have never known a bloom
So lovely as the little Maid
And Mistress of the room
In which a Fairy bids us try
To overcome the pain
By leaping out of needlework
To flowers, and back again.”

“Dear Tulips,” said the happy Child,
“Accept my love and thanks
For blossoming upon the bed
In green and scarlet ranks;
And quickly tell your Fairy Friend,
Affectionate and wise,
That all the pain is gone and Sleep
Is busy in my eyes.”

THEY ARE SEVEN

Giant Disgust,
With his hatred of glee,
Is as busily bad
As a giant can be.

Giant Disgrace
Has a pout of the size
Of a cabbage, and sparks
Of revenge in his eyes.

Giant Delight
Has the glow on his face
Of a Michaelmas pear
In a very warm place.

Giant Obey
Is a little severe,
But he keeps all the sky
Of a family clear.

Giant Agree
Is as merry as mice
That have nibbled a hole
In a packet of rice.

Giantess Joy
Is as ready to kiss
As a kitten to purr
In a moment of bliss.

Giantess Love
Is a maker of beds,
And a teller of tales,
And a stroker of heads.

THE THANKFUL BIRDS

The Blackbird in the lilac said,
“Since joy has lived with me to-day,
I mean to warble Hip hurray!
Before I put myself to bed.”

The Thrush upon the damson cried,
“Since she who laid those lovely eggs
Can hear in them the sound of legs,
My beak is full of faith and pride.”

The Chaffinch in the elder said,
“A bird that hops along his life
Without a plump and willing wife
Is wrong in heart and wrong in head.”

The Blackcap whispered to his hen,
“I'm thankful every moment, Dear,
That you and I and Love are here,
Without a boy or cat. Amen.”

TO ROSALIND

There were three little bedrooms down below
The stack of the chimney tall and square,
And up on the roof, in a foot of snow,
Was a Traveller big as a grizzly bear.
He made himself small in a magic way,
And, as soon as he trod on the creaking floor,
He muttered a charm, he waved an arm,
And at once was as big as he was before!

There were five little children deep in dream,
With a long black hungry stocking for each,
All carefully placed, so as not to seem
Too high for the loving Old Man to reach.
The Visitor said, “It is fun to find
Such a carpety nestful of girls and boys.”
He muttered a charm, he waved an arm,
And the air was alive with a covey of toys!

As he moved so softly beside the beds,
His holiday heart went pitter-pit-pat
Till Christopher's, Margery's, Violet's, Ted's,
And Annabel's stocking was fatter than fat!
He made himself small in a magic way,
And, as soon as he stood on the roof once more,
He muttered a charm, he waved an arm,
And at once was as big as he was before!

His affectionate heart, for a moment sad
At the pain of leaving the bonny Five,
Remembered the beautiful love he had
For millions of dear little souls alive.
Quite suddenly into his head there popped
A thought that was nothing whatever but You!
He muttered a charm, he waved an arm,
And went like a streak down your nursery flue!

100

DICK AND THE DUCK

Dilly, Dilly, what wonderful luck
To come out of a shell as a Warwickshire duck!

Roll along, and display the legs
And the down of the colour of scrambled eggs!

Sweet the treble you faithfully sing
On your way to the pond with its reedy ring;

Sweet the sorrow you pipe in a rut
Of the road to the left of the forester's hut.

Grass is pleasant, but water is best,
For it kisses the curve of your baby-like breast.

Dilly, Dilly, it wasn't my luck
To be born as a tiny unsinkable duck!

Bother paper and fingers and thumbs
That I use when the Giant Arithmetic comes!

101

Bother desk and the ruler and ink
And the weariful hours when I'm bothered to think!

Bother spectacles pinching the nose
Of the mistress who taps on the floor with her toes!

Dilly darling, you never can tell
How I wish I had lived for a time in a shell,

Waiting cosily there to be fond
Of a cruise and a dive in the glittering pond.

Dilly, Dilly, what wonderful luck
To come out of an egg as a Warwickshire duck!

102

THE WRONG NAME

Of all the little girls I know,
None loves the flowers so much as Dora.
If both her parents had been told
What she would do when six years old,
No doubt they would have named her Flora.

She always likes to take to bed
A sprig of lavender or tansy,
Or any other flowering friend
The seasons in their kindness send:
A pink, a primula, a pansy.

But when on frosty days her heart
For blossoms of the Spring is aching,
She never, never seems to tire
Of watching in the ruddy fire
The tulips that the flames are making.

When snowdrops come at last and say
That golden friends are close behind them,
The child keeps running out in rain,
Then running back, then out again
Along the gravel path to find them.

103

Of all the little girls I know,
None loves the flowers so much as Dora.
If both her parents could have guessed
The love she had within her breast,
They would have named their darling Flora.

104

THE PASSIVE RESISTER

I've told you twice already that I haven't time to be,
Among the hazels in the wood, a chattering chimpanzee;
And yet you come and knock and cough and sigh at half-past four,
And push a begging-letter underneath the study door.

When Uncles grow a little bald, as well as stiff and tame,
Babooning wildly in a wood is not the sort of game
They choose for recreation when they hurry from the den
In which they earn their bread and cheese by scratching with a pen.

You children always seem to think that if the day is fine
Your Uncle instantly desires to be a porcupine;

105

Or else, amid the rushes of the brook you call the Nile,
To imitate as best he can six yards of crocodile.

It's true I've been a rattlesnake; it's true I've been a bear;
It's true I've been a tiger in a very awkward lair,
With coat and trousers coloured brown, although a little pale,
And several feet of rope behind, to represent a tail;

But, Letty, there are afternoons when, feeling old and slow,
I wouldn't act for half-a-crown the breathless buffalo,
With paper horns upon my head, while furious Cherokees
Surround me in a forest glade and pepper me with peas.

I'm working, breading, cheesing hard. I haven't time to play,
So kiss me through the keyhole, Love, before you run away
To recommend the Bouncing Wolf and dewy Prairie Plant
To listen in the wigwam to their story-telling Aunt.

106

THE BITTER WEED

Children!

Here's a world with roses in it,
Love-lies-bleeding, larkspur, linnet,
Streams to gurgle at a bend,
Buttercups with gold to spend,
Moss as velvety as bees,
Squirrels in a town of trees,
Lavender that laughs at death,
Mortal, with immortal breath;
Yet I see, in sharp surprise,
Pouting lips and narrowing eyes!

Children!

Here's a world with Father in it,
Mother, wondering every minute
How to guard you, how to bless,
How to use unselfishness;
Cousin Edie, Auntie Nell,
Uncle, who is quick to tell
What his private fairy, Dew,
Bids him rhyme and print for you;
Yet I see, in sharp surprise,
Pouting lips and narrowing eyes!

107

Quarrel?

Which of you will try to mend it
Bravely with a kiss, and end it,
Turning back to Love, who crept
Out of hearing while she wept?
Quarrel is a bitter weed
Sprouting, from a tiny seed,
Faster than the plant of Joy
Grows to bless a girl and boy.
Molly, Gordon, Nancy, Ned,
All together! Kiss it dead!

108

FATHER'S POEM

Our Christopher has just begun
His second journey round the sun.

If I may judge from what I heard
To-night, he nearly knows a word.

At many adjectives and nouns
And strange diminutives he frowns,

And often seems to search his brain
For language of another strain,

As if in hope to recollect
Expressions that are more correct:

The kind that baby angels speak
Instead of Double Dutch or Greek.

It's wonderful how hard he tries
To learn the pair of dazzling eyes

That mother him; the lips that make
Poppy and rosebud for his sake.

109

It's wonderful how chuckling goes
Along his body to his toes.

If children of the ivy-tree
Can hold, as Christopher to me

When, with his fingers round my thumb,
He listens to the tune I hum,

The infant tendrils need not fear
The bravest wind of all the year.

To bend above him in his bed
Is melody for heart and head;

To see him lifted from his cot
To brighten day is grief forgot.

'Twill take the Lord a long, long while
To teach the boy a lovelier smile

Than that he gives when once again
Above his tiny counterpane

He sees the pair of lips that make
Rosebud and poppy for his sake.

110

TWELVE

This is the time when January goes
Across the moor, with chilblains on his toes.

Next comes the time when February drops
Ten thousand tons of water on the crops.

There follow hours when March, the Year's bad boy,
Uproots an elm, with shrieks of windy joy.

April arrives, to give near baby rills
A dancing-lesson to her daffodils.

May, with a heartfelt cry, is here to bless
The brook with little island-homes of cress.

But who is this? Revealing June appears,
To tell us she's the dearest dear of dears.

July's a romp! She eggs you on to play
At choking Uncle in a cock of hay.

111

Hurrah for August! She has found the knack
Of turning hedgeside berries sweet and black.

September follows. Ask the squirrels why
They think her more a lady than July.

October, have you still a fierce desire
To make the beech-tree's foliage look like fire?

So, misty-eyed November, yet once more
You damp the paint upon the nursery door!

One fact, December, is extremely plain:
No goose desired to have you here again!

112

MENTAL ARITHMETIC

If twice times twenty pigeons sat
Upon a tree, till thirty flew
Together out of view,
Yet four-and-fifty of the same
Companions of the forest came
(Though seven quickly sought a field,
To see what it would yield,
And seven carried legs and bills
Away toward the distant hills)
And, having half an hour to spare,
Took seats upon the branches there
Till several very sunburnt men
Drew near the towering elm, and then
With pellets slaughtered five times ten,
Let little blue-eyed Peter tell,
Or, if he can't, let Christabel,
How many pigeons in dismay
With slapping noises rushed away
And lived to coo another day.

113

SQUIRREL AND COW

A Squirrel, sitting on a bough,
Was greatly puzzled by a Cow.
“I'd give a nut to learn,” he said,
“If, when it's time to go to bed,
You knock those branches off your head.

“I cannot find a single trace
Of knowledge in your foolish face.
It would be hard for such a Fright,
With one half red, the other white,
To feel that what she does is right.

“Instead of looking like a clown,
You ought to dress yourself in brown,
And then, by taking exercise,
As Squirrels, Pigeons, Butterflies,
And Honey-Bees, reduce your size.

“How can you dully contemplate
The creatures that the Woodfolk hate?
How can you let that girl (whose teeth
I rather like) from Deadman's Heath
So tug and squeeze you underneath?

114

“Too big to frolic on a bough,
You live and die a nutless cow!—
A parent satisfied to fail
Her calf, and feed a milking-pail,
And whisk a limp and ropey tail.”

“You brown barbarian of the beech,”
('Twas thus the Cow began her speech)
“A head possessing so immense
A stock-in-trade of impudence
Has little room for commonsense.

“By being scolded and abused
I'm far less angry than amused.
Though vulgar chatterboxing serves
To help you criticise my curves,
It fails to get upon my nerves.

“Within this easy-going brain
I look for what will best explain
The folly of your narrow view,
And find it in the fact that you
Have never had a cud to chew.

“Remain as proud as Punch to be
The russet tenant of a tree,
And I, content with horns and tail,
Will gladly browse along the vale
And fill at morn and eve a pail.

115

“I know a dozen friends who say
That if the upper parts were grey,
The under-regions and the jaws
As crimson as a bunch of haws,
A Squirrel might deserve applause.

“But Wisdom gives the perfect suit
To every animal and fruit.
For all of us, however dressed,
However tailed, however tressed,
The plan adopted is the best.”

116

WHEN

When blackbirds sit in damson trees
And pour upon the summer breeze
Their bright domestic melodies,
It's no use calling Uncle.

When several saucy bluetits come
And make the archway near the plum
A quivering gymnasium,
It's no use calling Uncle.

When Autumn butterflies display
Their wings on lavender, and stay,
As if to think of God, and pray,
It's no use calling Uncle.

When Evening travels out of sight
And Beauty comes to dress the Night
In black, with silver beads of light,
It's no use calling Uncle.

117

A DISGRACEFUL AFFAIR

A goblin with his arrow shot
A dove upon a chimney-pot.

He uttered a peculiar yell
On seeing where his victim fell,

And ran in haste to look for her
Beneath the bush of lavender.

He capered on the lawn, and threw
His cap toward the sky, and flew

To show a heartless mate the size
And feathers of his coloured prize.

This comrade had, by skill or luck,
Despatched an unobservant duck,

And took no interest in what
The other murderer had shot.

Delighted Anger quickly rose
To redden forehead, cheek, and nose.

118

The goblins flung aside the prey,
And, scowling in a savage way,

While using more unseemly words
Than any known to Caspian Kurds,

They panted round the lawn, and hit,
And scratched and swore and foamed and bit!

As if by magic, Snub and Bean,
Two dogs, appeared upon the scene

And would have added to the fight,
At intervals, a clever bite,

Had not their rapid glances found
The pair of victims on the ground.

So Snub, astonished by his luck,
Instanter bolted with the duck,

While Bean, too business-like to miss
A chance so excellent as this,

Eloped rejoicingly with what
Had tumbled from the chimney-pot.

Perhaps an abler man than I
Could point the moral. Let him try!

119

THE DEFENDER

As soon as Mary stooped to break
The violet's neck, a Fairy ran
Between her fingers and the bloom,
And sweetly begged her not to make
So quick and heartless a mistake.

The violet trembled in the shade,
But did not speak a single word,
Because she knew her valiant friend
(A Fairy never is afraid)
Would reason with the little maid.

If dropped on marble or on stone,
A shilling has a pretty voice;
But when a Fairy begs a child
To leave a violet alone,
She uses an enchanting tone.

The words of what the Fairy said
I cannot tell you; yet I know
She never wavered, never paused,
Till many startled tears were shed
And Mary's brow and cheeks were red.

120

THE CANDID CUCKOO

A Cuckoo and a Nightingale
Once met by chance in Cowslip Vale,
And after nodding each to each
Sat down together on a beech,
Both very willing to declare
They had an afternoon to spare.

“Please,” said the Nightingale, “explain
The shortness of your mellow strain,
Which, as it seems (he shook his head)
Is over sooner than it's said—
Though that's a phrase you might have heard
More fitly from an Irish bird.
But what I want to ask is, Why
A longer strain refuse to try?
Imagination can't be dead
In such a very well-shaped head;
And if you will, I'm sure you can
Improve upon this tiresome plan.
I hear with something like dismay
What Poets call your roundelay,
Though this and other sillier words
Are laughing-stocks for clever birds.

121

But tell me, Cuckoo, why you say
So little on your woodland way,
Instead of making us a speech
Worth hearing from an oak or beech.
Does pride, or carelessness, allow?
Or are you hampered by a vow
To give the world so short a cry
From tousled March to gay July?
I often think you have forgot
The solo verses—have you not?—
And kept as treasure in your heart
Only the vexing chorus part.
If I should be as curt as you,
Whatever would the lovers do?
Or those who run a special train,
That city-folk shall hear my strain
Where rose and honeysuckle rest
In scent and starshine, breast to breast?”

Just here the Cuckoo raised his voice
To make the hills and woods rejoice.
(If they rejoice, as Poets tell,
They hide their feelings very well.)

“Before,” he added, “I permit
Your beak to illustrate your wit,
I ought to tell you I aspire
To put my knowledge out on hire.
A minute grant me, to enlarge
On aim and method; as to charge,

122

I price all trills and minor thirds
To suit the pockets of the birds.
My wish it is to make the song
Of every singer wide and strong,
That birds may not with justice be
Accused of such monotony
As, for example, lives in you,
And in the careless Pigeon too.
If you will come three times a day
For half an hour, I think you'll say
The time has been most wisely spent
In gaining vocal ornament.
My references are very good
From Crinkle Hill and Birdsey Wood:
Please ask the Owl to let you hear
The shake he learned from me last year.
Let Merit reap! Let Genius thrive!
Support the Ablest Bird alive!
That, when you've passed the time of eggs,
Grown bald, and tottery on your legs,
The knowledge that you did not fail
An Academic Nightingale,
Who wished to put, for cheerless day,
A nest-egg carefully away
Where weeds and grasses, rank by rank,
Conceal his private Savings'-Bank,
May serve you better than a cup
Of Grannie Cuckoo's Pick-me-up.
I know the Thrush at Lilac Tower
Charges a penny for an hour,

123

Though how he finds this rate of pay
Keeps off the Workhouse, who can say?
'Tis foolish of this bird to try
To undersell me on the sly,
And give to pupils small or large
His lessons nearly free of charge;
My terms—the Thrush is bound to smash!—
Are seven a shilling, ready cash.”

The Cuckoo raised his weary head,
Stared at the Nightingale, and said,
“Had I but known you wished to preach,
Not this or any other beech
Had found you sitting next to me
This afternoon at half-past three.
But since the question of my voice—
Well known to make the hills rejoice—
(I must admit that if they did,
Their feelings were completely hid)
Has risen in this casual way,
I've listened while you said your say,
In hope to have, when you had rung
The changes on the English tongue,
A chance to put my point of view
Politely, but with force, to you.
Don't fidget, please! for while you spoke
I kept as steady as an oak,
And only once, when most oppressed,
A “Cuckoo” gave to clear my chest.

124

Now let me tell you how it makes
My temper bubble when your shakes
Prevent me in the foliage deep
From getting half my beauty-sleep.
The sense of honour must be slight
That lets you carry on at night
As if you thought the very stars
Were glad to hear loquacious bars
Of music of the fatal kind
Is always pleased to lag behind.
I hate those birds, I frankly say,
That will not speak their thoughts by day,
And, having spoken, will not pop
Their heads beneath their wings, and stop.
You love, undone by gift of gab,
Your household chronicles to blab,
Which bore the Finches till they long
For men to fright you from your song.
Give me the bird that knows his mind,
And sings it when the sun is kind!
Give me that gentlemanly bird
Not eager for the final word!
Not one in whom a twisted sense
Of honour causes keen offence
To folk who have a perfect right,
When prayers are said, to sleep at night.
If you were twenty times more brief,
'Twould prove a valuable relief
To birds who'd give me any sum
To teach you how at last to come

125

From all those agitated squeaks
To follow economic beaks.
With more of sense, and less of tongue,
You'd learn the art of keeping young
By putting out the eggs to hatch
And never sharing what you catch,
Instead of toiling to produce
A cottage for your private use.
Since Mistress Pipit chirps with glee
While bringing up a son for me,
I should not like, upon my word,
To disappoint the little bird;
Besides, what folly to invest
Your total in a single nest!
A Cuckoo's brain is cool and brisk;
It counts the cost, divides the risk,
And never snubs a family
That offers board and lodging free.
If you would learn to imitate
The wisdom of a Cuckoo's pate,
Instead of squeaking in a thorn
From early eve till early morn,
And teaching silly Owls to make
The night more hideous with a shake,
You'd cease to be a scourge, and find
Yourself a credit to your kind.”

Just here the Nightingale assumed
The look of one by deafness doomed,
As if the Cuckoo were a bird
Too grossly vulgar to be heard.

126

This done, so hard he wagged his bill,
The Cuckoo felt extremely ill,
And left the wounded Nightingale
To tire his beak in Cowslip Vale.

'Tis only fair for me to add
That if he made the valley glad
By pouring out so very long
The rapid river of his song,
Then valleys easily conceal
The joy the Poets say they feel.

127

THE FIRST EGG

My dearest Robin, let me beg
That you will keep this splendid egg
A secret from the cat.
I fear she noticed you last week
With strips of bedding in your beak,
And guessed what you were at.

Don't sing a boastful melody
About it in a lilac-tree,
But fly a field away
And bubble over with delight
Till evening changes into night
And starry holiday.

The egg's a credit to your mate!
Please tell her I congratulate
You both in hearty terms.
For colour, smoothness, shape and size
It's such an egg as I should prize,
If I could feed on worms.

We human creatures, when our joy
Is busy with a girl or boy,
Risk nothing if we shout.

128

Because our happy hearts are full,
Delicious bragging is the rule,
And handing babes about.

But since, because of mice and rats,
We can't put muzzles on our cats,
I think I ought to speak.
Believe me, Robin, it is best,
Though song is aching in your breast,
For you to—hold your beak!

129

SEE-SAW

My darlings, would you like to know
About a bear named Esau,
Who loved to have a bit of fun
At night by playing see-saw?
He learned by watching from the wood
The woodman's children play the game,
As woodmen's children should.

When moonlight shone, and every tree
Looked rather like a ghost,
The little bear, with Ursula,
The merry friend he loved the most,
Away from home would quickly run,
And in the children's playground have
An hour or two of fun.

The Moon was pleased to watch them romp
Together on the plank.
First Esau rose toward the sky,
And then toward the earth he sank,
While Ursula with grunts and squeals
Pushed very hard upon the ground
Her pair of furry heels.

130

But suddenly the laughing Moon
Was terrified to see
The vexed and sleepy mother-bear
Approach by stealth from tree to tree!
She tried her best to cry aloud,
But failed, so very kindly popped
Behind a big black cloud.

The moment when the creaking plank
Was level in the air
The mother smote it with her paw
And roughly stopped the happy pair.
“Go home at once! and do not speak,
You naughty rogues! And, Esau, mind!—
No honey for a week!”

So, Darlings, as I thought you'd like
To hear a tale of Esau,
The bearikin who used to love
At night a game of see-saw,
I set it down in simple rhyme.
What else I hear of him I'll tell
To you another time.

131

FORGOTTEN

When Jesus saw the shavings drop
And litter all His father's shop
He must have laughed with joy at those
Increasing playmates of His toes.

The toddling Saviour often stood
Among the yellow curls of wood
And heard the tune of Joseph's plane
Sound clear, then pause, then sound again.

I wish that we could come upon,
In Luke or Matthew, Mark or John,
A record of His loveliness
When yet a child, His toys, His dress.

I wonder if He used to sow
The seed of flowers and help them grow
By water from the stream that ran
In whispers to His tilted can;

Or if He tumbled on the ground
Because a puppy's loving bound

132

Surprised His little strength and made
His Mother's bosom half-afraid;

Or if He scattered corn to bring
The pigeons round Him in a ring,
And shouted when He saw them glide
In flocks above the countryside;

Or if He learnt at Mary's knees
The names of animals and trees,
And fought, a scholar very young,
With words too heavy for His tongue.

The Saints who wrote the Gospels penned
The work and suffering of our Friend,
But clean forgot the Heavenly Boy's
Companionship with earthly toys.

133

THE QUARREL

Over fields of growing bread
Bluest heavens were spread.
On the pond a duck was floating,
In the tree a thrush was noting
What her husband said.

When, beside a bush of laurel,
Ruth and Jim began to quarrel,
Half the brightness of the day
Seemed at once to pass away.
'Twas as if a cloud were spread
Over fields of infant bread;
'Twas as if a gloomy duck
Grumbled at his want of luck.
What had been a major key
Changed to minor in the tree,
Since the bird, becoming sad,
Cried that all the eggs were bad!

Suddenly the heart of Ruth
Ran from Temper back to Truth
Just when Jim, extremely red,
Blushed for what his tongue had said.

134

So, beside the bush of laurel,
Love again defeated Quarrel,
Using, to make sure of this,
Sob and hug and violent kiss!
Uncle Hilary let down
All the wrinkles of his frown;
Never, never had the wheat
More enjoyed a meal of heat;
Seemingly the duckling pressed
Ripples off a braver chest,
Loudly hearing, while he paddled,
That, so far from being addled,
All the eggs deserved to be
Honoured in a major key.

135

A CONVERSATION

If I speak some words to you,
Woodwren almost out of view,
Will your Feathered Highness be
Tame and talkative for me?

Should your honesty intend
What becomes a quiet friend,
Fond of woodbirds, small or big,
I will twitter from a twig.

Thank you, Madam! If I think
What you say is fit for ink,
Shall I rhymingly express
All of it for James and Jess?

Please report in tinkling words
How myself and fellow-birds,
Being dignified, detest
Human fingers in a nest.

Since I still have space enough
Left for scribbles on a cuff,
I will take a note or two
Of this conference with you.

136

Were my husband not away,
He would ask of you to say
What he thinks of arms and legs
Climbing up a tree for eggs.

Let him trust me. I shall write
Sympathetic words to-night
From a heart prepared to love
Nuthatch, Creeper, Woodwren, Dove.

Thank you, Sir, a thousand times!
Thanks for sympathy and rhymes!
Never was, since eggs began,
Such a loving gentleman!

137

GRANNIE

The west is faded, like a stubble-field,
The sun no longer keeps the meadow hot;
The darkened brook is glad to lull
To rest the young forget-me-not.
Albreda! Ellen! Margaret!
The dew is busy, and the grass is wet,
And dreams are running to the violet.
Lambs of my heart, come in!

(She waits)

The Earth has turned her back upon the sun
To find the covey of the milk-white stars;
The thrush is tuning in the pear,
At intervals, his bedtime bars.
Albreda! Ellen! Margaret!
A dream is flowering in the violet,
The wind is chilly, and the turf is wet.
Lambs of my heart, come in!

(She waits)

Listen! Your quiet Uncle now begins
To tell the keyboard all that Fancy floats

138

From heart and brain, and makes it sound
Along the ivory street of notes.
Albreda! Ellen! Margaret!
Since honest Dew has now to pay her debt
In liquid pearls, the grass is very wet.
Lambs of my love, run in!

(They run to her)

139

CHARLIE AND THE SUN

Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!
Leave the little bench
Where you sit and worry
English into French!

Two-ing, four-ing, nine-ing—
Throw them all away!
Overhead is shining
Big Round Holiday!

Gallop to the Study,
Kiss your Daddy's face,
Tell him trees are buddy,
Challenge him to race!

Tell him how I spied you
Sitting all alone,
Weariness inside you
Heavy as a stone.

Tell him how my finger
Wrote upon the floor,
Using gold, Don't linger,
Charlie, any more!

140

Looking back, I find him
(Curlier than you),
Gild the floor behind him,
Saunter into view.

Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!
Leave the little bench
Where you sit and worry
English into French!

Tell him how I banished
Drudgery and care.
Tell him how he vanished,
Faster than a hare!

Cheques can wait for signing,
Books be tossed away.
Overhead is shining
Big Round Holiday!

141

THE GREEDY BOY

It nearly turns my brown hair white
To think of Edgar's greediness!
Some persons say that he was quite
As gobbling as a leopardess,

However this may be, I know
He always cleared his plate before
His brother (Dick) and sister (Flo),
And hammered with his spoon for more.

In spite of Nurse, he used to grab
The largest round of buttered toast.
Who chanced to get the smallest slab
He didn't care, if he had most!

One day he went at three o'clock
To Ivy House for romping games
With such a merry-hearted flock
Of boys and girls with pretty names!

He wanted Susie's spotted horse,
And all the toys, and all the fun;
And when the food appeared, of course
He roughly snatched the biggest bun.

142

When tea was over, he began
To kick, and pull his mouth askew,
Because he envied tiny Nan
Her red and yellow cockatoo.

At last his Nurse said, “Edgar Board,
You don't deserve this pleasant treat.
Come home at once!” How Edgar roared
Along three hundred yards of street!

His Mother, thinking him in pain,
Rushed out to meet them in the hall,
And cried (as Mothers will), “Why, Jane,
What's making Master Edgar bawl?”

The boy exclaimed, “Well, even you
Would want to punish Nancy Relf!
She's bought a lovely cockatoo
And gone and kept it all herself!”

143

THE DISAPPOINTMENT

Unless my Lily blossoms soon
I mean to mope and cry.
However blue and gold the day,
She dawdles hour by hour away;
I can't imagine why.

As Mary's darling now has bloomed,
And Christopher's as well,
It grieves me more than Mother knows
When petals simply won't unclose
For me to praise and smell.

Because her buds are rather brown
I fear that she is ill.
Do Lilies sicken for the Mumps,
Or any other kind of lumps?
Or suffer from a chill?

I'm puzzled. There is something wrong,
But what, I cannot guess.
The Gardener only rubs his chin
And screws his nose when I begin
To speak of my distress.

144

It's usual for my Uncle John
To give me good advice,
But yesterday he said, “My Pet,
If Lilies fail, there's Mignonette,
Who's really rather nice.”

I know there is; and Charity,
And Thrift, and London Pride,
And Columbine, who dearly loves
To have a dovecot full of doves
That mustn't leave her side.

But early in the Spring I chose
This Lily-plant instead,
And kissed her stem a hundred times
And told her all the pretty rhymes
I carry in my head.

I shan't desert her just because
She has a secret pain.
The promise made, to love her best,
However beautiful the rest,
I whisper once again.

Unless she blossoms very soon,
I mean to mope and cry.
Though warm and blue and gold the day,
She dawdles hour by hour away;
Can no one tell me why?

145

THE BAITED TRAP

“So this,” said Nibbler Mouse,
“Is another cheesey house.
What a very level floor!
What a captivating door!”

“But Grannie often said,
While she wagged her charming head,
Silky, if you want to make
Flesh by eating currant cake,

Or long to be the pride
Of a larder-loving bride,
Swear upon your bended knees
Not to fall a prey to cheese.

If caught, you soon will find
All the worthlessness of rind.
Silky, what's the end of that?
Sudden funeral in a cat!

“So this,” said Nibbler Mouse,
“Is another cheesey house.
Ornamental, I admit.
Tempting? Not one little bit!”

146

THE SPONGE

I met the Spirit of the Frost,
And she was crying, crying,
As if each pane of glass were lost,
And lakes and ponds were dying.

Because, when I had first begun
My climbing and my leaping,
An anxious Mother used to run
To kiss away my weeping,
I stopped; and since she did not speak,
I dared, becoming bolder,
To stroke the coldness of a cheek,
And pat a heaving shoulder.

“Listen!” I said. “For many a year,
In many an English county,
I've stood amazed to see your clear
And silver-seeming bounty;
And now that we at last have met
(Though sorrowful the meeting)
I want to pay the heavy debt
I owe to you, my Sweeting.
Look up! and tell me, if you can,
The nature of the trouble;

147

For grieving lonely is a plan
That makes a sorrow double.”

By listening to the words I used,
Poor Frost at last relented,
And told me how her heart was bruised,
And why she thus lamented.

“The Sun's so very hard to please
With early morning posies.
I draw for him a million trees
And ferns and Christmas roses,
And daffodils, and butterflies
With winter gems all over,
And mignonette of baby size,
And sparkling heads of clover;
But yet he rubs on every sheet
Of glass his sponge, and never
Is kind enough to say, How sweet!
Or, How intensely clever!

“Last night I ran from pane to pane
To find the breath of sleepers
And use it—though, alas! in vain—
For loops of flowering creepers.
The Moon, attentive while I worked
To make the breathing settle,
Will tell you that I never shirked
A leaf or stem or petal.
A comet ran along the sky
To see the beauty clearer,

148

And all the stars began to try
To press a little nearer.
'Twas such enchanting work, I felt,
As anybody clever,
So far from wishing it to melt,
Would want to keep for ever.

“Dear Friend, whose hand was softly laid
In love upon my shoulder,
I wish that Father Time had made
Immeasurably colder
The Sun, who tumbled out of bed
This morning in a passion
And shook a disapproving head,
According to his fashion.
He raised his golden sponge; he jeered
At every window gleaming
With icy loveliness, and smeared
The beauty past his dreaming.
He dabbed and dabbed. Because I knew
Each masterpiece was dying,
As though a drop of summer dew,
I screamed, and burst out crying!”

149

MICAWBER

Where is your April radiance gone,
You damp and out-at-elbows bird
Now speaking in this bitter tone
Your long and melancholy word?
Delights for lemon-coloured bill
In winter days 'tis hard to see,
But you are counting chances still,
Micawber of the balcony!

Humped in a ball of discontent,
You look as if you mean to cry
For showers of manna to be sent
At once from out the leaden sky.
Considering Fate, you scarcely note
A single joy upon the list,
But ponder underneath your coat
The gospel of a pessimist.

The bird that fiercely pecked all day
The coloured berries of the wild,
When Autumn fed him, seems to say,
I want to be your Charity-Child;
So, just to tell us he is near,
Sudden from out his bosom starts

150

That canting whine—how sad! how clear!—
To move, and even wound, our hearts.

Have done with jaundice in your look,
My winged relation of the air!
For master, mistress, housemaid, cook
Have pleasant odds-and-ends to spare.
Two eager girls, as deputies
Of Santa Claus, in leaping frocks,
Shall run to spread beneath the trees
The suet of your Christmas-box.

151

NATURE SPEAKS

“Here's a piece of work for you,”
Said their Mistress to the Brambles.
“Keep on working! Industry
Means delightful country rambles.
Since this lane is rather dull,
Being mostly quick and nettles,
Let it learn how fair a fruit
Follows your display of petals!”

“Here's a piece of work for you,”
Said her Mistress to the Heather.
“All your fire-bewildered roots
Now must set to work together!
Laugh as I would have you laugh,
Most ingenious merrymaker,
While you dress for me again
Every burnt and blackened acre!”

“Here's a piece of work for you,”
Said her Mistress to the Bracken.
“Never, till the task is done
Tenderly and nobly, slacken!

152

Where the woodmen felled the pines
(Stricken at the post of duty)
Flood, in memory of the dead,
All the open space with beauty!”

153

LOVE IN ENGLAND

Love, who sprang from bed in haste,
Pulled the blind up, quickly dressed,
Tied an apron round her waist,
Hummed the music in her breast.
“Here's my dawn and here's my day,
Here's my English work,” she said;
“Here's the chance to give away
Loaves of love, the perfect bread.”

“Now that England's up again,
Not a minute must be lost;
Not a second, weak and vain,
Used for sums of care and cost.
Mine the splendid recipe
Never known to fail!” she said;
“All that wish can have from me
Loaves of love, the perfect bread!”

“Trust my oven! Come in throngs
Over hill and stream and moor,
Gay with laughter, glad with songs,
Multitudinous at my door!

154

Bringing baskets you have kept
Idle hitherto,” she said,
“Bless my baking, and accept
Loaves of love, the perfect bread!”

“You that labour at the bench,
You that toil within the shop,
You that dig the celery trench,
You that sow the cornland crop,
Fill your baskets! If you lack
Twice as much again,” she said,
“Run to me, and carry back
Loaves of love, the perfect bread!”

155

CERTAINLY NOT

He runs across the plain
Of blueness without end,
His pockets full of gold
To give to every friend.
In August year by year
His rapid servant comes
To mark with pink and red
The shoulders of the plums;
To make the apple stare
As fixedly as once
When Eve forgot a rule,
And Adam was a dunce;
To freckle Baby's soft
And silky inch of nose,
And bronze in half a day
A million seaside toes.

But though, as all admit,
He's capable of more
Than fifty Aunts could tell
From two o'clock till four,
However much he thinks,
However hard he tries,

156

However long he plans,
The Sun can never rise.

When August disappears,
September, brown and blithe,
Is ready for the Sun
To flash along the scythe;
To kiss from green to black
The berries soon to stain
The pinafores and thumbs
Of madcaps in the lane;
To heat upon his bush
The thorn-defended sloe,
And dye his glossy face
As dark as indigo;
To teach the hazel-nut
The tightness of a shell
That holds him while he learns
The way he ought to swell.

But though, as all admit,
He's capable of more
Than Poets could explain
From two o'clock till four,
However long he skulks
Behind a cloud, to fret,
And bite his nails, and frown,
The Sun can never set.

157

THE CHRISTMAS ROBIN

Though Frost, ere the afternoon closes,
Is busy with silver-leaf roses
To cover my pane,
Come, chirp on the sill and be handy,
You nimble and delicate dandy
From Crab-Apple Lane!

The ballads I never wish muted
Are those by your bravery fluted
In cherry and lime.
Then open the beak that rehearses
For Spring the delicious blank verses
Too lovely for rhyme.

Suppose me a captive, enduring
The grave of a dungeon immuring
Himself and his star,
And sing as if Blondel were humming
Of cowslips in England while strumming
His loyal guitar.

With breast like a rose, on the coping
You blossom while heartily hoping
For crumbs to appear.

158

Such food as I have for your eating
Is little to pay you, my Sweeting,
For half that I hear.

'Tis said, when the Saviour was bleeding
For hearts that were cold and unheeding,
A forefather tried
To staunch with a kerchief of feather,
Where steel and His flesh met together,
The wound in His side.

If so, in a beautiful fashion
You preach from the text of His Passion
Without any words,
And seem, as a comforter sainted
By Christ on the Cross, ere He fainted,
The dearest of birds.