Sweet Days Of Childhood

Childhood is a magical time. Its a time of wonderment, imagination, and of learning. Its a time that passes by all too soon. But, if we sit back and remember, we can still recapture some of the magic!

Many of these are poems and fun I remember from childhood.

"The world is so full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings."

-- Robert Lewis Stevenson

To My Cousin Suzi - who put magic in my childhood.

--Sadie

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"One of the highlights of my childhood was making my brother laugh so hard that food came out his nose."

--Garrison Keillor

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Star light, star bright,
First star I've seen tonight,
Wish I may, wish I might,
Have this wish I wish tonight.

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Frère Jacques

Are you sleeping, are you sleeping?
Brother John, Brother John?
Morning bells are ringing,

morning bells are ringing
Ding Ding Dong, Ding Ding Dong.

Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques,
Dormez vous? Dormez vous?
Sonnez le matin, Sonnez le matin
Din Din Don, Din Din Don

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The End

 

When I was One,

I had just begun.

 

When I was Two

I was nearly new,

 

When I was Three

I was hardly Me.

 

When I was Four

I was not much more

 

When I was Five

I was just alive.

 

But now I am Six,

I'm clever as clever.

So I think I'll be Six

Now for ever and ever.

--A. A. Milne

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Little

I am the sister of him

And he is my brother

He is too little for us

To talk to each other.

So every morning I show him

My doll and my book,

But every morning he still is

Too little to look.

--Dorothy Aldis

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Bed In Summer

In winter I get up at night

And dress by yellow candle-light.

In summer quite the other way,

I have to go to bed by day.

I have to go to bed and see

The birds still hopping on the tree,

Or hear the grown-up people's feet

Still going past me in the street.

And does it not seem hard to you,

When all the sky is clear and blue,

And I should like so much to play,

To have to go to bed by day?

--Robert Louis Stevenson

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Laughing Song

Come live and be merry,

and join with me

To sing the sweet chorus

of "Ha, ha, he!.

--William Blake

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Eletelephony

Once there was an elephant

Who tried to use the telephant--

No! No! I mean and elephone

Who tried to use the telephone--

(Dear me! I am not certain quite

That even now I've got it right.)

 

Howe'er it was, he got his trunk

Entangled in the telephunk;

The more he tried to get it free

The louder buzzed the telephee--

(I fear I'd better drop the song

Of the elephop and the telephong!)

--Laura E. Richards

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There Was An Old Man

There was an old man with a beard

Who said, "It is just as I feared!

Two owls and a hen

Four larks and a wren

Have all build their nests in my beard!"

--Edward Lear

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Mr. Nobody

I know a funny little man,
As quiet as a mouse,
Who does the mischief that is done
In everybody's house!
No one ever sees his face,
And yet we all agree
That every plate we break was cracked
By Mr Nobody.

'Tis he who always tears our books,
Who leaves the door ajar,
He pulls the buttons from our shirts,
And scatters pins afar;
That squeaking door will always squeak,
For, Friend, don't you see,
We leave the oiling to be done
By Mr. Nobody.

He puts damp wood upon the fire,
That kettles cannot boil;
His are the feet that bring in the mud,
And all the carpets soil.
The papers always are mislaid,
Who had them last but he?
There's not one tosses them about
But Mr. Nobody.

The finger marks upon the door
By none of us are made;
We never leave the blinds unclosed,
to let the curtains fade;
The ink we never spill; the boots
That lying around you see
Are not our boots; they all belong
To Mr. Nobody!

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My Shadow

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 so little that there's none of him 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 nursie 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 sleepyhead,
Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.

--Robert Louis Stevenson

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Foreign Lands

Up into the cherry tree

Who should climb but little me?

I held the trunk with both my hands

And looked abroad in foreign lands.

 

I saw the next door garden lie,

Adorned with flowers, before my eye,

And many pleasant places more

That I had never seen before.

 

I saw the dimpling river pass

And be the sky's blue looking-glass;

The dusty roads go up and down

With people tramping in to town.

 

If I could find a higher tree

Farther and farther I should see,

To where the grown-up river slips

Into the sea among the ships,

 

To where the road on either hand

Lead onward into fairy land,

Where all the children dine at five,

And all the playthings come alive.

--Robert Louis Stevenson

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Afternoon on a Hill

I will be the gladdest thing

Under the sun!

I will touch a hundred flowers

And not pick one.

I will look at cliffs and clouds

With quiet eyes,

Watch the wind bow down the grass,

And the grass rise.

And when lights begin to show

Up from the town,

I will mark which must be mine,

And then start down!

--Edna St. Vincent Millay

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Aunt Sadie

Copyright 2001