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    Songs of Childhood (Illustrated)
    Songs of Childhood (Illustrated)
    Songs of Childhood (Illustrated)
    Ebook93 pages34 minutes

    Songs of Childhood (Illustrated)

    By Walter de la Mare

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    About this ebook

    The book is an edited and illustrated version of the original one and includes 18 or more unique illustrations which are relevant to its content.

    The poetry of Walter de la Mare sings boldly and beautifully without any of these hedges and condescensions. His work has the honest candor of the border ballads and the fairy tales: as well as unmitigated joys, they are full of the dangers and horrors and sorrows that every child soon knows to be part of the world, however vainly parents try to veil them. A child's curiosity about the forbidden will insist on being satisfied; and better by verse than otherwise. This poetry is also musically astute and demanding; it may surprise and alert the parental reader; and it has its share of archaisms and poeticisms, which, contrary to adult surmise, bemuse and fascinate children. And it must be admitted that it is also relentlessly British; but then, so is much good children's literature.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublishereBookIt.com
    Release dateApr 26, 2016
    ISBN9781456613440
    Songs of Childhood (Illustrated)

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      Book preview

      Songs of Childhood (Illustrated) - Walter de la Mare

      9781456613440

      THE

      GNOMIES

      As I lay awake in the white moonlight,

      I heard a sweet singing in the wood—

      'Out of bed,

      Sleepyhead,

      Put your white foot now,

      Here are we,

      'Neath the tree,

      Singing round the root now!'

      I looked out of window in the white moonlight,

      The trees were like snow in the wood—

      'Come away

      Child and play,

      Light wi' the gnomies;

      In a mound,

      Green and round,

      That's where their home is!

      'Honey sweet,

      Curds to eat,

      Cream and frumènty,

      Shells and beads,

      Poppy seeds,

      You shall have plenty.'

      But soon as I stooped in the dim moonlight

      To put on my stocking and my shoe,

      The sweet, sweet singing died sadly away,

      And the light of the morning peep'd through:

      Then instead of the gnomies there came a red robin

      To sing of the buttercups and dew.

      BLUEBELLS

      Where the bluebells and the wind are,

      Fairies in a ring I spied,

      And I heard a little linnet

      Singing near beside.

      Where the primrose and the dew are,

      Soon were sped the fairies all:

      Only now the green turf freshens,

      And the linnets call.

      LOVELOCKS

      I watched the Lady Caroline

      Bind up her dark and beauteous hair;

      Her face was rosy in the glass,

      And 'twixt the coils her hands would pass,

      White in the candleshine.

      Her bottles on the table lay,

      Stoppered yet sweet of violet;

      Her image in the mirror stooped

      To view those locks as lightly looped

      As cherry-boughs in May.

      The snowy night lay dim without,

      I heard the Waits their sweet song sing;

      The window smouldered keen with frost;

      Yet still she twisted, sleeked and tossed

      Her beauteous hair about.

      O DEAR ME!

      Here are crocuses, white, gold, grey!

      'O dear me!' says Marjorie May;

      Flat as a platter the blackberry blows:

      'O dear me!' says Madeleine Rose;

      The leaves are fallen, the swallows flown:

      'O dear me!' says Humphrey John;

      Snow lies thick where all night it fell:

      'O dear me!' says Emmanuel.

      TARTARY

      If I were Lord of Tartary,

      Myself and me alone,

      My bed should be of ivory,

      Of beaten gold my throne;

      And in my court should peacocks flaunt,

      And in my forests tigers haunt,

      And in my pools great fishes slant

      Their fins athwart the sun.

      If I were Lord of Tartary,

      Trumpeters every day

      To all my meals should summon me,

      And in my courtyards bray;

      And in the evenings lamps should shine,

      Yellow as honey, red as wine,

      While harp, and flute, and mandoline,

      Made music sweet and gay.

      If I were Lord of Tartary,

      I'd wear a robe of beads,

      White, and gold, and green they'd be—

      And small, and thick

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