A Child's Garden of Verses Read online

  Late at night to go to bed.

  GARDEN DAYS

  NIGHT AND DAY

  When the golden day is done,

  Through the closing portal,

  Child and garden, flower and sun,

  Vanish all things mortal.

  As the blinding shadows fall,

  As the rays diminish,

  Under evening's cloak, they all

  Roll away and vanish.

  Garden darkened, daisy shut,

  Child in bed, they slumber –

  Glow-worm in the highway rut,

  Mice among the lumber.

  In the darkness houses shine,

  Parents move with candles;

  Till, on all, the night divine

  Turns the bedroom handles.

  Till at last the day begins

  In the east a-breaking,

  In the hedges and the whins

  Sleeping birds a-waking.

  In the darkness shapes of things,

  Houses, trees, and hedges,

  Clearer grow; and sparrow's wings

  Beat on window ledges.

  These shall wake the yawning maid;

  She the door shall open –

  Finding dew on garden glade

  And the morning broken.

  There my garden grows again

  Green and rosy painted,

  As at eve behind the pane

  From my eyes it fainted.

  Just as it was shut away,

  Toy-like, in the even,

  Here I see it glow with day

  Under glowing heaven.

  Every path and every plot,

  Every bush of roses,

  Every blue forget-me-not

  Where the dew reposes,

  ‘Up!’ they cry, ‘the day is come

  On the smiling valleys;

  We have beat the morning drum;

  Playmate, join your allies!’

  NEST EGGS

  Birds all the sunny day

  Flutter and quarrel

  Here in the arbour-like

  Tent of the laurel.

  Here in the fork

  The brown nest is seated;

  Four little blue eggs

  The mother keeps heated.

  While we stand watching her,

  Staring like gabies,

  Safe in each egg are the

  Bird's little babies.

  Soon the frail eggs they shall

  Chip, and upspringing

  Make all the April woods

  Merry with singing.

  Younger than we are,

  O children, and frailer,

  Soon in blue air they'll be

  Singer and sailor.

  We, so much older,

  Taller and stronger,

  We shall look down on the

  Birdies no longer.

  They shall go flying

  With musical speeches

  High overhead in the

  Tops of the beeches.

  In spite of our wisdom

  And sensible talking,

  We on our feet must go

  Plodding and walking.

  THE FLOWERS

  All the names I know from nurse:

  Gardener's garters, Shepherd's purse,

  Bachelor's buttons, Lady's smock,

  And the Lady Hollyhock.

  Fairy places, fairy things,

  Fairy woods where the wild bee wings,

  Tiny trees for tiny dames –

  These must all be fairy names!

  Tiny woods below whose boughs

  Shady fairies weave a house;

  Tiny tree-tops, rose or thyme,

  Where the braver fairies climb!

  Fair are grown-up people's trees,

  But the fairest woods are these;

  Where if I were not so tall,

  I should live for good and all.

  SUMMER SUN

  Great is the sun, and wide he goes

  Through empty heaven without repose;

  And in the blue and glowing days

  More thick than rain he showers his rays.

  Though closer still the blinds we pull

  To keep the shady parlour cool,

  Yet he will find a chink or two

  To slip his golden fingers through.

  The dusty attic, spider-clad,

  He, through the keyhole, maketh glad;

  And through the broken edge of tiles,

  Into the laddered hayloft smiles.

  Meantime his golden face around

  He bares to all the garden ground,

  And sheds a warm and glittering look

  Among the ivy's inmost nook.

  Above the hills, along the blue

  Round the bright air with footing true.

  To please the child, to paint the rose,

  The gardener of the World, he goes.

  THE DUMB SOLDIER

  When the grass was closely mown,

  Walking on the lawn alone,

  In the turf a hole I found

  And hid a soldier underground.

  Spring and daisies came apace;

  Grasses hide my hiding-place;

  Grasses run like a green sea

  O'er the lawn up to my knee.

  Under grass alone he lies,

  Looking up with leaden eyes,

  Scarlet coat and pointed gun,

  To the stars and to the sun.

  When the grass is ripe like grain,

  When the scythe is stoned again,

  When the lawn is shaven clear,

  Then my hole shall reappear.

  I shall find him, never fear,

  I shall find my grenadier;

  But for all that's gone and come,

  I shall find my soldier dumb.

  He has lived, a little thing,

  In the grassy woods of spring;

  Done, if he could tell me true,

  Just as I should like to do.

  He has seen the starry hours

  And the springing of the flowers;

  And the fairy things that pass

  In the forests of the grass.

  In the silence he has heard

  Talking bee and ladybird,

  And the butterfly has flown

  O'er him as he lay alone.

  Not a word will he disclose,

  Not a word of all he knows.

  I must lay him on the shelf,

  And make up the tale myself.

  AUTUMN FIRES

  In the other gardens

  And all up the vale,

  From the autumn bonfires

  See the smoke trail!

  Pleasant summer over

  And all the summer flowers,

  The red fire blazes,

  The grey smoke towers.

  Sing a song of seasons!

  Something bright in all!

  Flowers in the summer,

  Fires in the fall!

  THE GARDENER

  The gardener does not love to talk,

  He makes me keep the gravel walk;

  And when he puts his tools away;

  He locks the door and takes the key.

  Away behind the currant row

  Where no one else but cook may go,

  Far in the plots, I see him dig,

  Old and serious, brown and big.

  He digs the flowers, green, red, and blue,

  Nor wishes to be spoken to.

  He digs the flowers and cuts the hay,

  And never seems to want to play.

  Silly gardener! summer goes,

  And winter comes with pinching toes,

  When in the garden bare and brown

  You must lay your barrow down.

  Well now, and while the summer stays,

  To profit by these garden days,

  O how much wiser you would be

  To play at Indian wars with me!

  HISTORICAL ASSOCIATIONS

  Dear Uncle Jim, this garden ground

&nbs
p; That now you smoke your pipe around

  Has seen immortal actions done

  And valiant battles lost and won.

  Here we had best on tip-toe tread,

  While I for safety march ahead,

  For this is that enchanted ground

  Where all who loiter slumber sound.

  Here is the sea, here is the sand,

  Here is simple Shepherd's Land,

  Here are the fairy hollyhocks,

  And there are Ali Baba's rocks.

  But yonder, see! apart and high,

  Frozen Siberia lies; where I,

  With Robert Bruce and William Tell,

  Was bound by an enchanter's spell.

  There, then, awhile in chains we lay,

  In wintry dungeons, far from day;

  But ris'n at length, with might and main,

  Our iron fetters burst in twain,

  Then all the horns were blown in town;

  And, to the ramparts clanging down,

  All the giants leaped to horse

  And charged behind us through the gorse.

  On we rode, the others and I,

  Over the mountains blue, and by

  The Silent River, the sounding sea,

  And the robber woods of Tartary.

  A thousand miles we galloped fast,

  And down the witches' lane we passed,

  And rode amain, with brandished sword,

  Up to the middle, through the ford.

  Last we drew rein – a weary three –

  Upon the lawn, in time for tea,

  And from our steeds alighted down

  Before the gates of Babylon.

  ENVOYS

  TO WILLIE AND HENRIETTA

  If two may read aright

  These rhymes of old delight

  And house and garden play,

  You two, my cousins, and you only, may.

  You in a garden green

  With me were king and queen,

  Were hunter, soldier, tar,

  And all the thousand things that children are.

  Now in the elders' seat

  We rest with quiet feet,

  And from the window-bay

  We watch the children, our successors, play.

  ‘Time was,’ the golden head

  Irrevocably said;

  But time which none can bind,

  While flowing fast away, leaves love behind.

  TO MY MOTHER

  You too, my mother, read my rhymes

  For the love of unforgotten times,

  And you may chance to hear once more

  The little feet along the floor.

  TO AUNTIE

  Chief of our aunts – not only I,

  But all your dozen of nurslings cry –

  What did the other children do?

  And what were childhood, wanting you?

  TO MINNIE

  The red room with the giant bed

  Where none but elders laid their head;

  The little room where you and I

  Did for awhile together lie

  And, simple suitor, I your hand

  In decent marriage did demand;

  The great day nursery, best of all,

  With pictures pasted on the wall

  And leaves upon the blind –

  A pleasant room wherein to wake

  And hear the leafy garden shake

  And rustle in the wind –

  And pleasant there to lie in bed

  And see the pictures overhead –

  The wars about Sebastopol,

  The grinning guns along the wall,

  The daring escalade,

  The plunging ships, the bleating sheep,

  The happy children ankle-deep

  And laughing as they wade;

  All these are vanished clean away,

  And the old manse is changed to-day;

  It wears an altered face

  And shields a stranger race.

  The river, on from mill to mill,

  Flows past our childhood's garden still;

  But ah! we children never more

  Shall watch it from the water-door!

  Below the yew – it still is there –

  Our phantom voices haunt the air

  As we were still at play,

  And I can hear them call and say:

  ‘How far is it to Babylon?’

  Ah, far enough, my dear,

  Far, far enough from here –

  Yet you have farther gone!

  ‘Can I get there by candlelight?’

  So goes the old refrain.

  I do not know – perchance you might –

  But only, children, hear it right,

  Ah, never to return again!

  The eternal dawn, beyond a doubt,

  Shall break on hill and plain,

  And put all stars and candles out,

  Ere we be young again.

  To you in distant India, these

  I send across the seas,

  Nor count it far across.

  For which of us forgets

  The Indian cabinets,

  The bones of antelope, the wings of albatross.

  The pied and painted birds and beans,

  The junks and bangles, beads and screens,

  The gods and sacred bells,

  And the loud-humming, twisted shells?

  The level of the parlour floor

  Was honest, homely, Scottish shore;

  But when we climbed upon a chair,

  Behold the gorgeous East was there!

  Be this a fable; and behold

  Me in the parlour as of old,

  And Minnie just above me set

  In the quaint Indian cabinet!

  Smiling and kind, you grace a shelf

  Too high for me to reach myself.

  Reach down a hand, my dear, and take

  These rhymes for old acquaintance' sake.

  TO MY NAME-CHILD

  1

  Some day soon this rhyming volume, if you learn with proper speed,

  Little Louis Sanchez, will be given you to read.

  Then shall you discover, that your name was printed down

  By the English printers, long before, in London town.

  In the great and busy city where the East and West are met,

  All the little letters did the English printer set;

  While you thought of nothing, and were still too young to play,

  Foreign people thought of you in places far away.

  Ay, and while you slept, a baby, over all the English lands

  Other little children took the volume in their hands;

  Other children questioned, in their homes across the seas:

  Who was Little Louis, won't you tell us, mother, please?

  2

  Now that you have spelt your lesson, lay it down and go and play,

  Seeking shells and seaweed on the sands of Monterey,

  Watching all the mighty whalebones, lying buried by the breeze,

  Tiny sandy-pipers, and the huge Pacific seas.

  And remember in your playing, as the sea-fog rolls to you,

  Long ere you could read it, how I told you what to do;

  And that while you thought of no one, nearly half the world away

  Some one thought of Louis on the beach of Monterey!

  To ANY READER

  As from the house your mother sees

  You playing round the garden trees,

  So you may see, if you will look

  Through the windows of this book,

  Another child, far, far away,

  And in another garden, play.

  But do not think you can at all,

  By knocking on the window, call

  That child to hear you. He intent

  Is all on his play-business bent.

  He does not hear; he will not look,

  Nor yet be lured out of his book.

  For, long ago, the truth to say,

 
; He has grown up and gone away,

  And it is but a child of air

  That lingers in the garden there.

  INDEX OF FIRST LINES

  A birdie with a yellow bill, 40

  A child should always say what's true, 5

  All night long, and every night, 4

  All round the house is the jet-black night, 50

  All the names I know from nurse, 83

  As from the house your mother sees, 104

  At evening when the lamp is lit, 67

  Birds all the sunny day, 80

  Bring the comb and play upon it, 24

  Chief of our aunts – not only I, 97

  Children, you are very little, 30

  Come up here, O dusty feet, 43

  Dark brown is the river, 16

  Dear Uncle Jim, this garden ground, 89

  Down by a shining water well, 60

  Every night my prayers I say, 21

  Faster than fairies, faster than witches, 44

  From breakfast on all through the day, 18

  Great is the sun, and wide he goes, 84

  How do you like to go up in a swing, 39

  I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me, 19

  I saw you toss the kites on high, 27

  I should like to rise and go, 11

  I woke before the morning, I was happy all the day, 22

  If two may read aright, 95

  In the other gardens, 87

  In winter I get up at night, 1

  It is very nice to think, 2

  Last, to the chamber where I lie, 52

  Late lies the wintry sun a-bed, 45

  Little Indian, Sioux or Crow, 33

  My bed is like a little boat, 37