My kitchen windows look out over my neighbors’ driveway, so I often get a front row view of the comings and goings. Yesterday I saw the youngest (she’s almost 5) dancing with her shadow while waiting for the car to get loaded for the day. She was completely entranced, lifting first one arm and then the other, then pointing one toe to the side followed by the opposite toe. She shimmied and wiggled and eventually began to sing. It was charming.
It reminded me of a favorite childhood poem, My Shadow, by Robert Louis Stevenson
I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.
The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow
Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;
For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber ball,
And he sometimes gets to little that there’s none of hi at all.
He hasn’t got a notion of how children ought to play,
And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.
He stays so close beside me, he’s a coward you can see;
I’d think shame to stick to nurse as that shadow sticks to me!
One morning, very early, before the sun was up,
I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;
But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleep-head,
Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.
I still have this poem in The Illustrated Treasure of Children’s Literature. There are several poems in this collection that I remember and treasure. I didn’t have a huge number of books when I was little but this was one of them and I had my mother read to me from it quite a bit.
Do you have any favorite childhood poems?
Trail Baboon 
Lochinvar from Sir Walter Scott
The romance of it was over my 8 years old head but heroes, knights and swords were (are) wonderful. I think about that same time Sleeping Beauty and Snow White were still playing. I’m quite sure this explains my love for Princess Bride and Enchanted.
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Ooh, I just found Lochinvar in A Children’s Book of Verse(ed. Eric Kincaid) that I still have from Joel’s childhood – it also has “My Shadow”, VS.
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Oh, I do, as we had a couple of little-golden-type books of poems (I may still have one, will look). I had several of them memorized – here is the first one that comes to mind:
“I had a little nut tree, nothing would it bear
But a silver apple and a golden pair.
The King of Spain’s daughter came to visit me
And all for the sake of my little nut tree.
I skipped over water, I danced over sea
And all the birds in the air couldn’t catch me.”
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I have to ask. Is the poem as you have written it above, BiR, your recollection and how you understood the poem as a child? I’m asking because there are a couple of “errors,” and I’m wondering whether your child self just misunderstood the lines? I have several examples of lines in nursery rhymes that I misunderstood when I was little, and the mistakes didn’t occur to me until many years later. Of course, in my case, this situation was exacerbated by my limited understanding of English.
Here’s the version of “your” poem that I’m familiar with:
I had a little nut tree, nothing would it bear
But a silver nutmeg and a golden pear;
The King of Spain’s daughter came to visit me,
And all was because of my little nut tree.
I skipped over water, I danced over sea,
And all the birds in the air couldn’t catch me.
Also, are you familiar with Roald Dahl’s parody of it?
I had a little nut-tree,
Nothing would it bear.
I searched in all its branches,
But not a nut was there.
‘Oh, little tree,’ I begged,
‘Give me just a few.’
The little tree looked down at me
And whispered, ‘Nuts to you.’
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That’s interesting, PJ, because I was going to say the second line “But a sliver nutmeg…”, so I found the book and checked, and it says “apple.” I guess since it’s considered (at least in this book) to be a nursery rhyme, there are bound to be different versions.
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How about the “pair” in you version and “pear” in the other?
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One of the nursery rhymes that I misheard was Mary had a little lamb. I had no idea what “fleece” was, so I resolutely changed that to “feet.” “It’s feet was white as snow.” Grammar wasn’t my strong suit either.
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Ah, the pair is my own typo! Yikes.
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Rise and Rhyme, Baboons,
I had forgotten about this poem, VS. But I can understand why you would think of it after watching the little girl. We had some books with poems in them, but I do not remember any specifics. What I do remember was getting very engaged by Greek and Roman Myths. I had such a difficult time learning to read after my family experienced so many changes and traumas while I was the age to learn. It took me a lot of practice. Then I found Uncle JIm’s books, “The Junior Classics.” I have a set here that my sister found at a garage sale. The myths, and the hero tales, as well as fairy tales, were my favorites. Volume 10 held the poetry and I never got there. Those books helped me learn to read. Once I got it, I had my nose in those books constantly.
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We had those books, I think, Jacque – I do remember Volume 10, wish I still had it!
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I won’t be able to resist posting poems I learned during Joel’s childhood, as I have a lot more of these, both in memory and in books here… My s-i-l love this one, here’s first verse:
“The Fairies
Up the airy mountain, down the rushy glen
We daren’t go a-hunting for fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk, trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap, and white owl’s feather.”
… by William Allingham
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I wasn’t much for poetry as a child, and I’m still not. I guess I’m a literary troglodyte in that area. 🙂 I can sort of remember some of the classic nursery rhymes, but none of those, nor any more “serious” poems have stuck with me the same way the memories of so many books from my early years have stuck with me.
Chris in Owatonna
**BSP** Downtown Northfield tonight, 5-8, Division St. near Bridge Square. Krista, I have a copy of LMBT with your name on it! 🙂
And if any of y’all are down around Owatonna on Saturday, I’ll be doing GEM Days from 8 am until at least 1:00. The advertising might say 8-3, but the organizer seems to have changed that. I guess I’ll pack up when everyone else packs up.
My booth will be on North Cedar and Broadway, kitty corner from Central Park. BTW, Central Park has a terrific farmers market every Saturday, so come on down and get some farm fresh homegrown produce. Still a bit early for tomatoes, but we have some Hmong farmers who always have topnotch greens. Lots of home-baked breads cookies, cakes, etc., too. Plus, Little Professor Book Center is also across the street from Central Park. **END BSP**
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Oddly enough, the first poems I remember were nursery rhymes in English. That means I must have learned them by having been read to, repeatedly, presumably by my mother and/or her family and friends, before we moved to Denmark when I was three. I didn’t learn to read until I started school, and I was well into my seventh year when that happened. Funny, I’ve never considered this before. I have no recollection of my mother reading to me, at all, but surely she must have.
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I am fascinated by the universality of childhood experience expressed in My Shadow, although to the best of my recollection I have never read that poem before. But yes, I do recall being fascinated by my own shadow when I was a child. Seeing your neighbor’s little girl absorbed by and interacting with hers had to bring a smile to your face.
Something else was brought to mind by BiR’s comment about learning new poems in the process of reading to Joel. We do learn by interacting with children, and I can imagine that those of you who are parents, and grandparents are much more up on current reading material presented to young children.
As you know, I don’t have children of my own, and my exposure to children’s lit has been rather haphazard and spotty, and pretty much nonexistent for the last twenty years. I’m probably missing out on a lot of interesting stuff.
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As you say, PJ, I’m familiar with kiddie lit (our nickname for the college course that elem. ed majors had to take) from the Joel era – 1980s and 90s. But I’m woefully ignorant of more recent books. Working in bookstores helped for a while…
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Another from that same nursery rhyme book:
“Once I saw a little bird come hop, hop, hop;
So I cried, ‘Little Bird, will you stop, stop stop?’
I was leaning out the window to say, ‘How do you do?’
When he shook his little tail, and far away he flew.”
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I had a little bird.
Her name was Enza.
I opened up the window
And in-flew-Enza.
1918-1919. What a sad childhood rhyme.
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Oh, this book A Children’s Book of Verse (ed. Eric Kincaid) is just full of the really good stuff… I don’t know if I ever properly read the whole thing… i.e.
Some One
“Some one came knocking
At my wee, small door;
Someone came knocking;
I’m sure-sure-sure;
I listened, I opened,
I looked to left and right,
But nought there was a stirring
In the still dark night;
Only the busy beetle
Tap-tapping in the wall,
Only from the forest
The screech-owl’s call,
Only the cricket whistling
While the dewdrops fall,
So I know not who came knocking,
At all, at all, at all.”
Walter de la Mare
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Yes, I remember this one. Wonderful.
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Edgar Allan Poe knew who came knocking.
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Never More
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Here’s a new one to me by Eleanor Fargeon – a few stanzas:
It Was Long Ago
“I’ll tell you, shall I, something I remember?
Something that still means a great deal to me.
It was long ago.
A dusty road in summer I remember,
A mountain, and an old house, and a tree
That stood, you know,
Behind the house. An old woman I remember
In a red shawl with a grey cat on her knee
Humming under a tree.
She seemed the oldest thing I can remember.
But then perhaps I was not more than three.
It was long ago.
I dragged on the dusty road, and I remember
How the old woman looked over the fence at me
And seemed to know
How it felt to be three, and called out, I remember
“Do you like bilberries and cream for tea?”
I went under the tree.
And while she hummed, and the cat purred, I remember
How she filled a saucer with berries and cream for me
So long ago.
Such berries and such cream as I remember
I never had seen before, and never see
Today, you know.
And that is almost all I can remember,
The house, the mountain, the gray cat on her knee,
Her red shawl, and the tree,
And the taste of the berries, the feel of the sun I remember,
And the smell of everything that used to be
So long ago,
Till the heat on the road outside again I remember
And how the long dusty road seemed to have for me
No end, you know.
That is the farthest thing I can remember.
It won’t mean much to you. It does to me.
Then I grew up, you see.”
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Changed my mind – that was the whole thing.
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I had few books as a child and fewer ones with poetry. The ones I do remember were two volumes of Better Homes and Gardens Storybook, which were compilations of classic children’s literature (including items that would never be acceptable today like Little Black Sambo). I’m certain there were numerous poems in the volumes but the one I remember specifically was “You Are Old, Father William” from Alice in Wonderland and which included the original illustrations by John Tenniel.
Robin remembers fondly her father reading to them from Edward Lear, including “The Jumblies” and “The Pobble That Had No Toes”.
My own kids had a much more extensive exposure to poetry, as do my grandkids. In addition to collections like The Random House Book of Poetry for Children there were A. A. Milne’s When We Were Very Young and Maurice Sendak’s Nutshell Library.
A book of short poems we read to our kids and that I especially liked was Father Fox’s Pennyrhymes by Clyde and Wendy Watson. An example:
Dilly DillyPickalilly
Tell me something really silly,
“There was a man, his name was Bert,
He ate the buttons off his shirt.”
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This is in my book too, found it today, and here are my favorite two stanzas:
“You are old,” said the youth, “and your jaws are too weak
For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak—
Pray, how did you manage to do it?”
“In my youth,” said his father, “I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
Has lasted the rest of my life.”
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“How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!
Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
Rivers and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside ~
Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown ~
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down!”
~Robert Louis Stevenson, “A Child’s Garden of Verses”
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One of my favorites…
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Snort.
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I love AAMilne poems. I tried to copy one to add but it didn’t work. Will try again. Cynthia “Life is a shifting carpet…learn to dance.”
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Isn’t it funny how a bear likes honey
Buzz buzz buzz, I wonder why he does.
: )
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Halfway down the stairs
Is a stair
Where I sit.
There isn’t any
Other stair
Quite like
It.
I’m not at the bottom,
I’m not at the top;
So this is the stair
Where
I always
Stop.
Halfway up the stairs
Isn’t up
And isn’t down.
It isn’t in the nursery,
It isn’t in the town.
And all sorts of funny thoughts
Run round my head:
“It isn’t really
Anywhere!
It’s somewhere else
Instead!”
When she was about 3, my granddaughter sat in the middle of the stairs to the basement and recited this whole poem. We were astonished, as we didn’t know she knew it, though it had been read to her.
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From Cynthia…..
James James
Morrison Morrison
Weatherby George Dupree
Took great
Care of his Mother,
Though he was only three.
James James Said to his Mother,
“Mother,” he said, said he;
“You must never go down
to the end of the town,
if you don’t go down with me.”
James James
Morrison’s Mother
Put on a golden gown.
James James Morrison’s Mother
Drove to the end of the town.
James James Morrison’s Mother
Said to herself, said she:
“I can get right down
to the end of the town
and be back in time for tea.”
King John
Put up a notice,
“LOST or STOLEN or STRAYED!
JAMES JAMES MORRISON’S MOTHER
SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN MISLAID.
LAST SEEN
WANDERING VAGUELY:
QUITE OF HER OWN ACCORD,
SHE TRIED TO GET DOWN
TO THE END OF THE TOWN –
FORTY SHILLINGS REWARD!”
James James
Morrison Morrison
(Commonly known as Jim)
Told his
Other relations
Not to go blaming him.
James James
Said to his Mother,
“Mother,” he said, said he:
“You must never go down to the end of the town
without consulting me.”
James James
Morrison’s mother
Hasn’t been heard of since.
King John said he was sorry,
So did the Queen and Prince.
King John
(Somebody told me)
Said to a man he knew:
If people go down to the end of the town, well,
what can anyone do?”
(Now then, very softly)
J.J.
M.M.
W.G.Du P.
Took great
C/O his M*****
Though he was only 3.
J.J. said to his M*****
“M*****,” he said, said he:
“You-must-never-go-down-to-the-end-of-the-town-
if-you-don’t-go-down-with-ME!”
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I know that poem as a song, here’s why:
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In the third grade we did those Washington and Lincoln silhouettes. I was impressed by Walt Whitman’s series of poems including O Captain! My Captain!
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I remember the silhouettes.
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When I was in NYC, I engaged a tour company to give me a tour of literary Greenwich Village. There were three of us on the tour and two tour guides. At the site of Pfaff’s Cellar, a mid-nineteenth century beer cellar frequented by Walt Whitman just before he wrote Leaves of Grass, one of the guides recited “Oh Captain, My Captain”.
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fuzzy wuzzy was a beat
fuzzy wuzzy had no hair
fuzzy wuzzy wasn’t fuzzy was he ?
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The purple cow, anyone?
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Ummmmmm?
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I never saw a purple cow
I hope I never see one
But I can tell you anyhow
I’d rather see than be one.
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Ogden Nash, I think.
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Google says Gelett Burgess….
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I was guessing. Gelett .Burgess of the Goops…
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The Goops, they lick their fingers,
and the Goops, they lick their knives;
They spill their broth on the tablecloth,
Oh, they lead disgusting lives!
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Definitely Ogden Nash and one of my favorites:
Behold the duck.
It does not cluck.
A cluck it lacks.
It quacks.
It is specially fond
Of a puddle or pond.
When it dines or sups,
It bottoms ups.
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I think my mom used to say this one – maybe it was from HER teacher training:
“I was up so tip-toe early
That the flowers were all pearly,
As they waited in their places
For the sun to dry their faces.”
Dokothy Alms
Found it here:
https://www.bing.com/search?q=I+was+up+so+tiptoe+early&qs=n&form=QBRE&sp=-1&lq=0&pq=i+was+up+so+tiptoe+early&sc=10-24&sk=&cvid=F74A29C116634E64A3429662A70113F4&ghsh=0&ghacc=0&ghpl=
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I think Barbara’s true love is showing today!
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I’m kind of surprised at how much I love these!
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later shel silverstein
but all those kids sons and poems were favorites
diddle diddle dumpling
my son john
a tiskit a tasket
i loved broadway musicals
everything’s up to date in kansas city
the rain in spain falls mainly in the plain
i thought it fell on the plane
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In honor of Shel Silverstein:
“The Slithergadee has crawled out of the sea
He may catch all the others, but he won’t catch me
No you won’t catch me, old Slithergadee
You may catch all the others, but you wo– “
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Couple more…
Frisky Squirrel
“Whisky, frisky, hippity hop,
Up he goes to the tree-top!
Whirly, twirly, round and round,
Down he scampers to the ground.
Furly, curly, what a tail!
Tall as a feather, broad as a sail!
Where’s his supper? In the shell!
Snappety, crackety, out it fell!
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I just read that this one dates back to the 16th century:
Attributed to Mother Goose…
The North Wind Doth Blow
Nursery Rhyme
The North wind doth blow and we shall have snow,
And what will poor robin do then, poor thing?
He’ll sit in a barn and keep himself warm
and hide his head under his wing, poor thing…
…then there’s a swallow, a dormouse, honey-bee, and:
The north wind doth blow,
And we shall have snow,
And what will the children do then, poor things?
When lessons are done,
They must skip, jump and run,
Until they have made themselves warm, poor things!
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One fish
Two fish
Red fish
Blue fish.
Black fish
Blue fish
Old fish
New fish.
This one has a little star.
This one has a little car.
Say! What a lot
Of fish there are.
Yes. Some are red. And some are blue.
Some are old. And some are new.
Some are sad.
And some are glad.
And some are very, very bad.
Why are they
Sad and glad and bad?
I do not know.
Go ask your dad.
Some are thin.
And some are fat.
The fat one has
A yellow hat.
From there to here, from here to there,
Funny things
Are everywhere.
Here are some
Who like to run.
They run for fun
In the hot, hot sun.
Oh me! Oh my!
Oh me! Oh my!
What a lot
Of funny things go by.
Some have two feet
And some have four.
Some have six feet
And some have more.
Where do they come from? I can’t say.
But I bet they have come a long, long way.
We see them come.
We see them go.
Some are fast.
And some are slow.
Some are high
And some are low.
Not one of them
Is like another.
Don’t ask us why.
Go ask your mother.
Say!
Look at his fingers!
One, two, three…
How many fingers
Do I see?
One, two, three, four,
Five, six, seven,
Eight, nine, ten.
He has eleven!
Eleven!
This is something new.
I wish I had
Eleven, too!
– Dr. Seuss
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: ) : ) : )
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Dr. Seuss is wonderful.
I dated a man once upon a time, from India, who had six fingers on each hand. He was born that way, and since the extra fingers were fully functional, his parents decided against having them removed. It did make buying gloves difficult, but other than that, they didn’t present a problem for him.
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Nothing wrong with mittens.
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“I do not mean to pry, but you don’t by any chance happen to have six fingers on your right hand?”
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“Do you always begin conversations this way?”
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And from “A Great Big Ugly Man Came Up and Tied His horse to Me: A Book of Nonsense Verse” – (I know I’ve posted this before…)
“The Common Cormorant
The common cormorant (or shag)
Lays eggs inside a paper bag,
You follow the idea, no doubt?
It’s to keep the lightning out.
But what these unobservant birds
Have never thought of, is that herds
Of wandering bears might come with buns
And steal the bags to hold the crumbs.”
Christopher Isherwood
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G’nite.
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“Will you walk a little faster?” said a
whiting to a snail.
“There’s a porpoise close behind us,
and he’s treading on my tail.
See how eagerly the lobsters and
the turtles all advance!
They are waiting on the shingle–will you come and join the dance?
Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t
you, will you join the dance?
Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t
you, won’t you join the dance?
“You can really have no notion how
delightful it will be
When they take us up and throw us,
with the lobsters, out to sea!”
But the snail replied “Too far, too
far!” and gave a look askance.
Said he thanked the whiting kindly,
but he would not join the dance.
Would not, could not, would not,
could not, would not join the dance.
Would not, could not, would not,
could not, could not join the dance.
“What matters it how far we go?”
his scaly friend replied.
“There is another shore, you know,
upon the other side.
The further off from England the
nearer is to France–
Then turn not pale, beloved snail,
but come and join the dance.
Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t
you, will you join the dance?
Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t
you, won’t you join the dance?”
– Lewis Carroll
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Marvelous.
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The Walrus and the Carpenter is equally stellar! (by Lewis Carroll)
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Just remembered when I was leaving one of my favorite jobs which was in a library in Bellingham, Washington, I was given a book of Robert Louise Stevenson poems because it was what I asked for. Loved his pot so, too. Cynthia “Life is a shifting carpet…learn to dance.”
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My dear, dear friends, Mike and Ann, lived in Bellingham the last fifteen years of their lives, and I visited them any number of times. What an absolutely gorgeous place. Did you go to school there?
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No. I was living with a friend who was going to school there. I was between teaching jobs, first one in Port Angeles, substitute teaching in Seattle and the next one in Leadville, Colorado. After living in the western part of Washington, I needed sunshine. But, yes, it is beautiful there.
Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone
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