IT is a pleasant thing to watch
The coalmen at their work;
They do not seem to mind the dark
Where many dangers lurk.
The braver of them goes below
Into the cellar black,
And calls out in a cheerful voice
To bring another sack.
The other grunts and groans a lot
Beneath his load of coal,
And down the ladder goes with care
Until he gains the hole.
He turns his burden upside down,
The inside rattles out,
And a delicious smell of coal
Gets everywhere about.
The braver one takes up his spade
And shovels it away;
The other wipes his shiny face,
And asks the time of day.
But it is very strange to me
That neither seems to want
To put the ladder down the hole
And climb down where I can't.
A man, they say, once broke his leg
By falling down a grating,
And nearly died for want of food,
Because they kept him waiting
A week before they pulled him out
And took him to his home,
From which he never more went forth
The London streets to roam.
But coalmen do not run these risks,
They have no nurse to frown,
So they might spend the whole long day
In climbing up and down.[I]
THE PAVEMENT ARTIST
I THINK that I should like to be
A pavement artist best,
For he has every kind of chalk
Spread in a cosy nest.
I have ten pieces in a box,
Black, yellow, white and blue,
Pink, red, brown, orange, grey and green,
But these are far too few.
THE PAVEMENT ARTIST
THE PAVEMENT ARTIST
He has a hundred different shades,
And most uncommon sorts;
He can draw salmon, queens and chops,
Wrecks, mutinies and forts.
His cannon have enormous puffs
Of the most curly smoke,
Because he has so many 'greys,'
Far more than other folk.
His girls are a delicious pink,
And mine are rather pale;
But then I have to be more strict
For fear my pink should fail.
His fields have got a splendid green;
They're full of flowers bright;
But mine are covered up with snow
Because my paper's white.
And yet with all these jolly chalks,
The artist seems in pain;
Perhaps because his pictures get
Rubbed out by showers of rain.
But what I cannot understand
Is why each paving-stone
Has not a drawing on its face,
Why such a few are done.
Our walks would be much pleasanter,
If all the dullest streets
Were illustrated like a book
And gay as flags or sweets.
Of course a lot would get all smudged
By careless people's tracks,
But some would tread as I do now
Only upon the cracks.
SWEEPS
MY nurse declares that sweeps are kind,
Without the slightest inclination
To steal away a well-dressed child
Except by nurse's invitation.
Nurse says that children do not climb
The tall black chimneys any more;
She even says (this must be wrong)
Sweeps enter by the area door.
But I have seen a chimney-sweep
Go whooping up and down our street;
And on his back he had a sack—
I bet with something good to eat.
GREENGROCERS
GREENGROCERS, greengrocers,
In your green shops,
With cabbages and cauliflowers
And tough turnip-tops.
Mother buys daffodils,
And apples for me:
But nurse she buys radishes
To eat with her tea.
CHRISTMAS NOT FAR OFF
NOVEMBER fogs, November fogs,
A month to Christmas day.
The world is cold and dirty,
But the muffin man is gay.
He rings his bell, he rings his bell
All through the afternoon:
He rings his bell to let us know
That Christmas will come soon.
THE DISAPPOINTMENT
THE Punch and Judy man's in sight,
He's coming down our street,
He's stopping just before our house—
Shut up! I bagged that seat.
I say, the Colonel opposite[J]
Is sending him away,
Because he says his wife is ill
And can't bear noise to-day.
TREASURE TROVE
AFTER a winter walk, it's nice
To see the baked-potato man
Poking his stove and picking out
The best potatoes from his pan.
A baked potato on a spike
Is very like a pirate's head;
I always think of them again
Long after when I've gone to bed.
I bought one coming home from school,
And as I turned into our street,
The lamp-posts in the yellow fog
Sailed like a wicked pirate fleet.
And all the people in the fog
Were sailor-men upon a quay;
The pavement smelt of tar and salt:
I thought I heard quite close the sea.
I heard a whisper as I went,
'The Jolly Roger's at the peak';
A bullfinch in a lighted room
Was a parrot in a far-off creek.
The parlour-maid at Twenty-two
Was black-eyed Susan, and beyond,
The plane-tree was a cocoa-palm;
The crossing-sweeper was marooned.
And as I got close to our house,
I was an English midshipman;
My satchel was an old sea-chest,
My copy-book a treasure-plan.
And then a wondrous thing occurred,
The strangest thing I ever knew:
I found a shining sixpence, though
I don't suppose you'll think it true.
I hardly dared to look at it,
Afraid that it would only prove
A bit of tin, a Bovril coin,
And not a proper treasure-trove.
I told my brother and he thought
We'd better hide it out of sight,
In case the pirates should attack
Our bedroom on that foggy night.
The baked potato in my coat
Was just exactly Captain Kidd;
So both of us declared at once
That there the sixpence must be hid.
We took our sister's sailor-doll
And put his clothes upon a stick,
And spent the evening doing this
Instead of my arithmetic.
We made a glorious cocked-hat
Of paper-painted Prussian blue,
We put the pirate on the stick,
And stuck the sixpence first with glue.
Deep in my mother's window-box
Next day we buried Captain Kidd;
My sister never could find out
Where all her sailor-clothes were hid.
We made a map to show the place
And wrote directions in red ink;
But when we dug the treasure up,
I dropped it down the kitchen sink.
A VISIT TO MY AUNT
AUNT JANE with whom I sometimes stay
Has a very curious house,
As quiet as Aunt Jane herself,
As quiet as a mouse.
It's always Autumn when I go
And raining every day:
The garden's full of shrubs and paths
I'm sent out there to play.
The paths are green and full of moss,
The shrubs are wet and dark:
It's like a secret corner in
A sort of nightmare park.
I walk about the paths alone
And look at roots and leaves,
And once behind a laurel bush
I saw a Pierrot's[K] sleeves.
I thought of him that night in bed,
I was afraid he'd climb
And peep against the window-pane
And say a horrid rhyme.
And when I heard the rain outside
Dripping upon the sill,
I thought I heard his footsteps too,
And oh, I did lie still.
I saw his shadow dance about
Like a shadow on a sheet;
I saw his eyes, like currants black,
And his white velvet feet.
My aunt's house is a quiet house,
The servants never speak:
She goes to sleep each afternoon:
I stay there for a week.
The rooms have got a woolly smell,
They're full of little things—
Tall clocks and fat blue china bowls
And birds with coloured wings.
I tinkle all the candlesticks
Upon the mantelpiece:
They wave long after I have gone,
And never seem to cease.
The drawing-room is full of shawls,
With footstools everywhere,
And prickly cushions stuck upright
Upon each bristly chair.
I'm glad when I go home again
Into the shining lamps
And comfortable sound of streets,
And see my book of stamps.
DON QUIXOTE
DON QUIXOTE
DON QUIXOTE
THE clock is striking four o'clock,
It is not time for tea.
Although the night is marching up
And I can hardly see.
I'm reading in the library
In a most enormous chair;
The fire is just the very kind
That makes you want to stare.
I'm looking at the largest book
That ever yet was seen;
They say I shall not understand
This tale till I'm fourteen.
Don Quixote is the name of it
With pictures on each page;
The way that he was treated puts
Me in a fearful rage.
Don Quixote was a tall thin man
Whose thoughts were just like mine,
He saw queer things, he heard queer sounds
Though he was more than nine.
He used to lie in bed and watch
The hilly counterpane.
And see strange little knights-at-arms
Go riding down a plain.
His room was simply crowded with
Enchanters, dwarfs and elves,
And dragons used to go to sleep
Upon the darkest shelves.
He used to think that common things
Were really very strange,
Like me who saw a goblin once
Upon our kitchen-range.
He saw big giants in the clouds
Marching and fighting there:
He used to listen to the leaves
And think it was a bear.
He found some armour that belonged
To people long ago,
And rode away to fight and save
Princesses from the foe.
But every one behaved to him
As if they were his nurse:
They said he was old-fashioned and
They said he was a curse.
He used to play at 'let's pretend'
And charge a flock of sheep;
He used to read in bed at night
Instead of going to sleep.
There was not anything of which
He could not make a game;
He must have been a jolly chap—
Don Quixote was his name.
He had adventures every day,
He simply made them come;
But all his family shook their heads
And said that he was rum.
They burnt his books, they shut him up,
They threw enormous stones.
Some beastly fellows beat him too
And almost broke his bones.
It makes me simply furious,
It nearly makes me cry
To see him lying in the road—
I hope he will not die.
He did not mean to misbehave,
He wanted just to play;
Some people think my games are bad—
They did the other day.
A cousin came to stay with us
To see the Lord Mayor's Show,
And we were playing 'Ancient Greeks,'
A game you all must know.
Andromeda we gave to her,
Perseus was given to me;
My kiddy brother was the beast,
The nursery floor the sea.
We tied her to the rock with string,
The rock was Nurse's bed,
Medusa's head was Nurse's hat—
We ruined it, she said.
And as the floor was rather dry,
We got the water-jug,
And slooshed it all about the room
And simply sopped the rug.
My kiddy brother was the beast,
I killed him with the poker;
My kiddy cousin screamed and yelled
As if we meant to soak her.
So we were punished just because
We played at 'let's pretend.'
Don Quixote would have understood,
He would have been our friend.
Hullo! there goes the bell for tea;
They've lighted up the hall,
And I must go and wash my hands
And fetch Miss Perkins' shawl.
THE WET DAY
THE wettest days in London
Are quite a jolly spree:
Our house is like an island,
The wet street like a sea.
The rain beats on our windows
And splashes on the sill;
But the dining-room's a jungle,
The staircase is a hill.
Our camping-ground's the nursery,
The hall's a coral-reef;
My sister's cot's a schooner,
And Nurse an Indian chief.
Miss Perkins is a pirate,
The maids are cannibals;
They have orgies in the pantry
Unless a person calls.
We've guns and swords and pistols,
We've several sorts of flags;
By shooting on the hillside
We've got some splendid bags.
We found a grand volcano
Close to the servants' room,
It really was the cistern,
But it made a fearful boom.
In all our expeditions
My brother is the crew,
I'm midshipman and captain—
Of course it's rather few,
But then my kiddie sister
Has got to be the beasts
Which we go out a-hunting
In order to have feasts.
Our feasts are bread and butter,
And sometimes bread and jam—
That is, if when we're shooting
No doors are made to slam.
The wettest days in London
Are quite a jolly spree;
And sometimes, though not often,
Our friends come in to tea.
LAST WORDS
IF, Percy, you have money in your pocket,
For Algernon I hope you'll buy this book,
But when you've bought it, do let Algy read it,
And let your kiddy sister have a look.
This good advice applies to you, young Godfrey,
To Wilfred and to Michael and to Claude,
To James, Guy, Basil, Archibald and Eustace,
And also to Diana, Joan and Maud.
Philip, to you the last must be spoken;
Tell people of this book round Kensington;
Mention with kind encouragement the Author,
And get the money from your Uncle John.
THE END
image of the book's back cover