ends of my fingers my beauty grows;
I breathe with my hair, and I drink with my toes;
I grow bigger and bigger about the waist
Although I am always very tight laced;
None e’er saw me eat—I’ve no mouth to bite!
Yet I eat all day, and digest all night.
In the summer, with song I shake and quiver,
But in winter I fast and groan and shiver.
There is a plough that hath no share,
Only a coulter that parteth fair;
But the ridges they rise
To a terrible size
Or ever the coulter comes near to tear:
The horses and ridges fierce battle make;
The horses are safe, but the plough may break.
Seed cast in its furrows, or green or sear,
Will lift to the sun neither blade nor ear:
Down it drops plumb
Where no spring-times come,
Nor needeth it any harrowing gear;
Wheat nor poppy nor blade has been found
Able to grow on the naked ground.
Who is it that sleeps like a top all night,
And wakes in the morning so fresh and bright
That he breaks his bed as he gets up,
And leaves it smashed like a china cup?
I’ve a very long nose, but what of that?
It is not too long to lie on a mat!
I have very big jaws, but never get fat:
I don’t go to church, and I’m not a church rat!
I’ve a mouth in my middle my food goes in at,
Just like a skate’s—that’s a fish that’s a flat.
In summer I’m seldom able to breathe,
But when winter his blades in ice doth sheathe
I swell my one lung, I look big and I puff,
And I sometimes hiss.—There, that’s enough!
Baby
Where did you come from, baby dear?
Out of the everywhere into here.
Where did you get those eyes so blue?
Out of the sky as I came through.
What makes the light in them sparkle and spin?
Some of the starry twinkles 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 any one knows.
Whence that three-cornered smile of bliss?
Three angels gave me at once a kiss.
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 bonds 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.
Up and Down
The sun is gone down
And the moon’s in the sky
But the sun will come up
And the moon be laid by.
The flower is asleep.
But it is not dead,
When the morning shines
It will lift its head.
When winter comes
It will die! No, no,
It will only hide
From the frost and snow.
Sure is the summer,
Sure is the sun;
The night and the winter
Away they run.
Up in the Tree
What would you see, if I took you up
My little aerie-stair?
You would see the sky like a clear blue cup
Turned upside down in the air.
What would you do, up my aerie-stair
In my little nest on the tree?
With cry upon cry you would ripple the air
To get at what you would see.
And what would you reach in the top of the tree
To still your grasping grief?
Not a star would you clutch of all you would see,
You would gather just one green leaf.
But when you had lost your greedy grief,
Content to see from afar,
Your hand it would hold a withering leaf,
But your heart a shining star.
A Baby-Sermon
The lightning and thunder
They go and they come:
But the stars and the stillness
Are always at home.
Little Bo-Peep
Little Bo-Peep, she has lost her sheep,
And will not know where to find them;
They are over the height and out of sight,
Trailing their tails behind them!
Little Bo-Peep woke out of her sleep,
Jump’d up and set out to find them:
“The silly things! they’ve got no wings,
And they’ve left their trails behind them!
“They’ve taken their tails, but they’ve left their trails,
And so I shall follow and find them!”
For wherever a tail had dragged a trail
The grass lay bent behind them.
She washed in the brook, and caught up her crook.
And after her sheep did run
Along the trail that went up the dale
Across the grass in the sun.
She ran with a will, and she came to a hill
That went up steep like a spire;
On its very top the sun seemed to stop,
And burned like a flame of fire.
But now she went slow, for the hill did go
Up steeper as she went higher;
When she reached its crown, the sun was down,
Leaving a trail of fire.
And her sheep were gone, and hope she had none.
For now was no trail behind them.
Yes, there they were! long-tailed and fair!
But to see was not to find them!
Golden in hue, and rosy and blue,
And white as blossom of pears,
Her sheep they did run in the trail of the sun,
As she had been running in theirs!
After the sun like clouds they did run,
But she knew they were her sheep:
She sat down to cry and look up at the sky,
But she cried herself to sleep.
And as she slept the dew down wept,
And the wind did blow from the sky;
And doings strange brought a lovely change:
She woke with a different cry!
Nibble, nibble, crop, without a stop!
A hundred little lambs
Did pluck and eat the grass so sweet
That grew in the trail of their dams!
She gave one look, she caught up her crook,
Wiped away the sleep that did blind her;
And nibble-nibble-crop, without a stop
The lambs came nibbling behind her.
Home,
