Favourite Poems to Celebrate Babies and Children E-Book

• Herausgeber: Batsford
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Seitenzahl: 48

Beschreibung

A beautifully illustrated anthology of poetry celebrating babies, children and childhood – from the magical times and memories of childhood, through to the unconditional love a parent has for a child.Some of our best-loved poets are featured, such as William Blake, John Betjeman, Robert Louis Stevenson, Adrian Mitchell and WH Auden.The poems begin in infanthood, with the joys that babies and toddlers bring as they learn to move and speak, and progresses to playtime, friendships, holidays, trips and school days.The wonderful, endearing illustrations throughout make this the ideal book for anyone who celebrates a child in their life.

Leseprobe

Contents

Infant JoyWilliam Blake

The Baby’s DanceAnn Taylor

Things like OurselvesFrancis Beaumont and John Fletcher

Child CryingAnthony Thwaite

Characteristics of a Child Three Years OldWilliam Wordsworth

On a Child Beginning to TalkThomas Bastard

Four Years Old – A Nursery SongLeigh Hunt

On ChildrenFrances Cornford

Child and MotherWilliam Cowper

A Child IllJohn Betjeman

Frost at MidnightSamuel Taylor Coleridge

The Barefoot BoyJohn Greenleaf Whittier

CatrinGillian Clarke

The Land of CounterpaneRobert Louis Stevenson

I Remember, I RememberThomas Hood

Infant SorrowWilliam Blake

Children, ChildrenJohn Wain

A Cradle SongWilliam Blake

Children’s SongR.S. Thomas

in Just—e.e. Cummings

The Child on the CliffsEdward Thomas

Seven Yere of AgeAnonymous

At the Sea-sideRobert Louis Stevenson

The Poet at ten years oldWilliam Wordsworth

A Child said, What is the grass?Walt Whitman

At the ZooWilliam Makepeace Thackeray

FairgroundW.H. Auden

Ballroom Dancing ClassPhyllis McGinley

Of the Boy and his TopJohn Hookham Frere

There Was a Child Went ForthWalt Whitman

The Children’s HourHenry Wadsworth Longfellow

Dirty JimJane Taylor

My Parents Kept Me from Children who were RoughStephen Spender

In my Two Small FistsAdrian Mitchell

My Lost YouthHenry Wadsworth Longfellow

The SchoolboyWilliam Blake

A Medieval Schoolboy’s ComplaintAnonymous

from: On a Distant Prospect of Eton CollegeThomas Gray

A Fight at SchoolAlexander Smith

from: Upon the Disobedient ChildJohn Bunyan

At SchoolAlexander Smith

There Was a BoyWilliam Wordsworth

American BoyRandall Jarrell

Floreat EtonaWinthrop Mackworth Praed

Index to Poets

Picture Credits

Acknowledgements

Infant Joy

‘I have no name;

I am but two days old.’

What shall I call thee?

‘I happy am,

Joy is my name.’

Sweet joy befall thee!

Pretty joy!

Sweet joy, but two days old.

Sweet Joy I call thee:

Thou dost smile,

I sing the while;

Sweet joy befall thee!

William Blake

(1757–1827)

The Baby’s Dance

Dance, little baby, dance up high,

Never mind baby, mother is by;

Crow and caper, caper and crow,

There little baby, there you go:

Up to the ceiling, down to the ground,

Backwards and forwards, round and round.

Then dance, little baby, and mother shall sing,

With the merry gay coral, ding, ding, a-ding, ding.

Ann Taylor

(1782–1866)

Things like Ourselves

from: The Mad Lover

Things like ourselves, as sensual, vain, invented

Bubbles, and breaths of air, got with an itching,

As blisters are and bred; as much corruption

Flows from their lives: sorrow conceives and shapes ’em;

And oftentimes the death of those we love most.

The breeders bring ’em to the World to curse ’em,

Crying they creep amongst us like young Cats.

Cares and continual crosses keeping with ’em.

They make Time old to tend them, and experience

An ass: they alter so; they grow, and goodly,

Ere we can turn our thoughts, like drops of water

They fall into the main, and are known no more;

This is the love of this World; I must tell thee

For thou art understanding.

Francis Beaumont

(1584–1616)

and John Fletcher

(1579–1625)

Child Crying

My daughter cries, and I

Lift her from where she lies,

Carry her here and there,

Talk nonsense endlessly.

And still she cries and cries

In rage, mindlessly.

A trivial anguish, found

In every baby-book.

But, at a fortnight old,

A pink and frantic mound

Of appetites, each look

Scans unfamiliar ground.

A name without a face

Becomes a creature, takes

A creature’s energies.

Raging in my embrace.

She takes the world and shakes

Each firm appointed place.

No language blocks her way,

Oblique, loaded with tact.

Hunger and pain are real,

And in her blindness they

Are all she sees: the fact

Is what you cannot say.

Our difference is that

We gauge what each cry says,

Supply what need demands.

Or try to. All falls flat

If cure is wrong or guess

Leaves her still obdurate.

So through uncertainties

I carry her here and there,

And feel her human heart,

Her human miseries,

And in her language share

Her blind and trivial cries.

Anthony Thwaite

(1930–)

Characteristics of a Child Three Years Old

Loving she is, and tractable, though wild;

And Innocence hath privilege in her

To dignify arch looks and laughing eyes;

And feats of cunning; and the pretty round

Of trespasses, affected to provoke

Mock-chastisement and partnership in play.

And, as a faggot sparkles on the hearth,

Not less if unattended and alone

Than when both young and old sit gathered round

And take delight in its activity;

Even so this happy Creature of herself

Is all-sufficient, solitude to her

Is blithe society, who fills the air

With gladness and involuntary songs.

Light are her sallies as the tripping fawn’s

Forth-startled from the fern where she lay couched;

Unthought-of, unexpected, as the stir

Of the soft breeze ruilling the meadow-flowers,

Or from before it chasing wantonly

The many-coloured images imprest

Upon the bosom of a placid lake.

William Wordsworth

(1770–1850)

On a Child Beginning to Talk

Methinks ’tis pretty sport to hear a child

Rocking a word in mouth yet undefiled;

The tender racket rudely plays the sound,

Which, weakly bandied, cannot back rebound.

And the soft air the softer roof doth kiss,

With a sweet dying and a pretty miss,

Which hears no answer yet from the white rank

Of teeth, not risen from their coral bank.

The alphabet is searched for letters soft,

To try a word before it can be wrought;

And, when it slideth forth, it goes as nice

As when a man doth walk upon the ice.

Thomas Bastard

(1566–1618)

Four Years Old– A Nursery Song

One cannot turn a minute,

But mischief—there you’re in it,