Where Did You Come From,
Baby Dear?
G eorge M ac D onald
1 82 4–1 90 5
G
eorge MacDonald is considered to be one of the first writers who aimed to entertain
rather than instruct children, and was a great influence on many other poets. As a
clergyman, George MacDonald strongly believed in the power and beauty of God’s work.
This is reflected in this poem, which is in rhyming couplets.
Where did you come from, baby dear?
Out of the everywhere into here.
Where did you get your eyes so blue?
Out of the sky as I came through.
What makes the light in them sparkle and spin?
Some of the starry spikes left in.
Where did you get that little tear?
I found it waiting when I got here.
What makes your forehead so smooth and high?
A soft hand stroked it as I went by.
What makes your cheek like a warm white rose?
I saw something better than anyone knows.
Whence that three-cornered smile of bliss?
Three angels gave me at once a kiss.
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Where did you get this pearly ear?
God spoke, and it came out to hear.
Where did you get those arms and hands?
Love made itself into hooks and bands.
Feet, whence did you come, you darling things?
From the same box as the cherubs’ wings.
How did they all just come to be you?
God thought about me, and so I grew.
But how did you come to us, you dear?
God thought about you, and so I am here.
The Leader
Roger M c G ough
1 93 7–
I wanna be the leader
I wanna be the leader
Can I be the leader?
Can I? I can?
Promise? Promise?
Yippee, I’m the leader
I’m the leader
OK what shall we do?
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The Owl and the Pussycat
T
E dward L ear
1 81 2–88
his nonsense poem makes no literal sense, but it charms adults and children
alike with its rhythm, rhyme and ridiculous tale. The repetition of words makes
it fun to read and recite. Look out for the ‘internal rhyme’ – for example, ‘honey’ and
‘money’. The ‘runcible spoon’ was a phrase made up by Edward Lear in this poem and is
most likely a cross between a fork and a spoon.
The Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea-green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
‘O lovely Pussy! O Pussy my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!’
Pussy said to the Owl, ‘You elegant fowl!
How charmingly sweet you sing!
O let us be married! too long we have tarried:
But what shall we do for a ring?’
They sailed away, for a year and a day,
To the land where the Bong-tree grows
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood
With a ring at the end of his nose,
His nose,
His nose,
With a ring at the end of his nose.
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‘Dear pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
Your ring?’ Said the Piggy, ‘I will.’
So they took it away, and were married next day
By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.
What is an Epigram?
S amuel Taylor C oleridge
1 7 72–1 83 4
A
n epigram is a short, witty saying. It comes from the Greek word ‘epigramma’,
which means to write on or inscribe.
What is an Epigram? A dwarfish whole,
Its body brevity, and wit its soul.
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The Fly-Away Horse
E ugene F ield
1 850 –95
Oh, a wonderful horse is the Fly-Away Horse –
Perhaps you have seen him before;
Perhaps, while you slept, his shadow has swept
Through the moonlight that floats on the floor.
For it’s only at night, when the stars twinkle bright,
That the Fly-Away Horse, with a neigh
And a pull at his rein and a toss of his mane,
Is up on his heels and away!
The moon in the sky,
As he gallopeth by,
Cries: ‘Oh! What a marvellous sight!’
And the Stars in dismay
Hide their faces away
In the lap of old Grandmother Night.
It is yonder, out yonder, the Fly-Away Horse
Speedeth ever and ever away –
Over meadows and lane, over mountains and plains,
Over streamlets that sing at their play;
And over the sea like a ghost sweepeth he,
While the ships they go sailing below,
And he speedeth so fast that the men on the mast
Adjudge him some portent of woe.
‘What ho, there!’ they cry,
As he flourishes by
With a whisk of his beautiful tail;
And the fish in the sea
Are as scared as can be,
From the nautilus up to the whale!
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And the Fly-Away Horse seeks those far-away lands
You little folk dream of at night –
Where candy-trees grow, and honey-brooks flow,
And corn-fields with popcorn are white;
And the beasts in the wood are ever so good
To children who visit them there –
What glory astride of a lion to ride,
Or to wrestle around with a bear!
The monkeys, they say:
‘Come on, let us play,’
And they frisk in the coconut-trees:
While the parrots, that cling
To the peanut-vines, sing
Or converse with comparative ease!
Off! scamper to bed – you shall ride him tonight!
For, as soon as you’ve fallen asleep,
With a jubilant neigh he shall bear you away
Over forest and hillside and deep!
But tell us, my dear, all you see and you hear
In those beautiful lands over there,
Where the Fly-Away Horse wings his far-away course
With the wee one consigned to his care.
Then grandma will cry
In amazement: ‘Oh, my!’
And she’ll think it could never be so;
And only we two
Shall know it is true –
You and I, little precious! shall know!
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He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
W. B . Y eats
1 8 6 5 –1 939
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
Friendship
E li z abeth J ennings
1 92 6 –2 0 01
Such love I cannot analyse;
It does not rest in lips or eyes,
Neither in kisses nor caress.
Partly, I know, it’s gentleness
And understanding in one word
Or in brief letters. It’s preserved
By trust and by respect and awe.
These are the words I’m feeling for.
Two people, yes, two lasting friends.
The giving comes, the taking ends.
There is no measure for such things.
For this all Nature slows and sings.
157
Bright Star!
John Keats
1 795 –1 82 1
Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art –
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors –
No – yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillowed upon my fair love’s ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever – or else swoon to death.
158
She Walks in Beauty
B
G eorge G ordon , L ord B yron
1 7 88–1 82 4
yron was inspired to write this poem in 1814 when he glimpsed a young woman,
who was his cousin by marriage, at a party, wearing a black mourning gown
covered with spangles.
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.
And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
159
The Star-Spangled Banner
B
F rancis S cott Key
1 7 79–1 843
est known as the American national anthem, ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’
comes from a poem called ‘Defence of Fort McHenry’, written in 1814. Francis
Scott Key was a lawyer who witnessed the attack on Fort McHenry in Baltimore by the
British navy in 1812. It proved to be an American victory over the British, and Key was
inspired by the sight of the flag that flew above the fort for the duration of the battle. The
English composer John Stafford Smith later set the poem to music. Popular on both sides
of the Atlantic, ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ became the official flag-raising song for the
U.S. Navy in 1889 and was made the national anthem by President Hoover in 1931. The
original ‘Star-Spangled Banner’ flag had thirteen stripes and thirteen stars. Over time,
as more states were added, the flag changed. The thirteen stripes remain – they stand
for the original colonies – but there are now fifty stars, which each represent one of the
Union States.
Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O ’ er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O ’ er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze o ’ er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected, now shines in the stream.
’Tis the star-spangled banner; oh, long may it wave
O ’ er the land of the free, and the home of the brave!
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And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O ’ er the land of the free, and the home of the brave!
Oh, thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war’s desolation;
Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land
Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust!’
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O ’ er the land of the free, and the home of the brave!
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The Star
T
Jane Taylor
1 7 83 –1 82 4
his poem first appeared in Rhymes for the Nursery, published in 1806 by sisters
Ann and Jane Taylor. The first verse is one of our best-known nursery rhymes,
while the later lines are almost completely forgotten. The sing-song words and repetition
make it easy to learn .
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.
When the blazing sun is gone,
When he nothing shines upon,
Then you show your little light,
Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.
Then the traveller in the dark,
Thanks you for your tiny spark,
He could not see which way to go,
If you did not twinkle so.
In the dark blue sky you keep,
And often through my curtains peep,
For you never shut your eye,
Till the sun is in the sky.
As your bright and tiny spark,
Lights the traveller in the dark,
Though I know now what you are,
Twinkle, twinkle, little star.
254
Wynken, Blynken, and Nod
T
E ugene F ield
1850 –95
his poem, written by the American poet and journalist Eugene Field, is also
known as ‘Dutch Lullaby’. It lulls us gently into dreamland. Do you ever find
that just before you go to sleep, your imagination can run wild and dreams seem real?
What poem would you write to describe your dreams?
Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night
Sailed off in a wooden shoe –
Sailed on a river of crystal light,
Into a sea of dew.
‘Where are you going, and what do you wish?’
The old moon asked the three.
‘We have come to fish for the herring fish
That live in this beautiful sea;
Nets of silver and gold have we!’
Said Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.
The old moon laughed and sang a song,
As they rocked in the wooden shoe,
And the wind that sped them all night long
Ruffled the waves of dew.
The little stars were the herring fish
That lived in that beautiful sea –
‘Now cast your nets wherever you wish –
Never afeard are we’;
So cried the stars to the fishermen three:
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.
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All night long their nets they threw
To the stars in the twinkling foam –
Then down from the skies came the wooden shoe,
Bringing the fishermen home;
’Twas all so pretty a sail it seemed
As if it could not be,
And some folks thought ’twas a dream they’d dreamed
Of sailing that beautiful sea –
But I shall name you the fishermen three:
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.
Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes,
And Nod is a little head,
And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies
Is a wee one’s trundle-bed.
So shut your eyes while mother sings
Of wonderful sights that be,
And you shall see the beautiful things
As you rock in the misty sea,
Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three:
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.
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Escape at Bedtime
I
Robert L ouis S tevenson
1 850 –94
n another of his poems about bedtime, Robert Louis Stevenson captures a child’s
sense of wonder as he escapes outside to look at the vast sky.
The lights from the parlour and kitchen shone out Through the blinds and the windows and bars; And high overhead and all moving about, There were thousands of millions of stars. There ne’er were such thousands of leaves on a tree, Nor of people in church or the Park, As the crowds of the stars that looked down upon me, And that glittered and winked in the dark. The Dog, and the Plough, and the Hunter, and all, And the star of the sailor, and Mars, These shown in the sky, and the pail by the wall Would be half full of water and stars. They saw me at last, and they chased me with cries, And they soon had me packed into bed; But the glory kept shining and bright in my eyes, And the stars going round in my head. 262