Poetry for children

Chapter 12: TO A RIVER IN WHICH A CHILD WAS DROWNED

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About This Book

This collection assembles short, simple poems and dialogues written for young readers, many by Mary with contributions from Charles, presenting playful scenes of childhood, sibling banter, moral fables, religious reflections, and observations of nature and daily life. Pieces range from light verse about losing baby teeth, toys, and first sights of green fields to didactic fables and tender portraits of family affection, occasionally adapting biblical or anecdotal material. Language is plain and rhythmic, with occasional ballads and moral lessons aimed at cultivating kindness, cleanliness, courage, and sympathy while celebrating imagination and domestic intimacy.

TO A RIVER
IN WHICH A CHILD
WAS DROWNED

Smiling river, smiling river,

On thy bosom sunbeams play;

Though they’re fleeting, and retreating,

Thou hast more deceit than they.

In thy channel, in thy channel,

Choked with ooze and gravelly stones,

Deep immersed, and unhearsed,

Lies young Edward’s corse; his bones

Ever whitening, ever whitening,

As thy waves against them dash;

What thy torrent, in the current,

Swallow’d, now it helps to wash.

As if senseless, as if senseless

Things had feeling in this case;

What so blindly and unkindly

It destroy’d, it now does grace.