Children

Offerings

A THOUSAND perfect men and women appear,
Around each gathers a cluster of friends, and gay children and
youths, with offerings.

A Child's Amaze

SILENT and amazed, even when a little boy,
I remember I heard the preacher every Sunday put God in his
statements,
As contending against some being or influence.

To An Orphan Child
A Whimsey
AH, child, thou art but half thy darling mother's;
Hers couldst thou wholly be,
My light in thee would outglow all in others;
She would relive to me.
But niggard Nature's trick of birth
Bars, lest she overjoy,
Renewal of the loved on earth
Save with alloy.
The Dame has no regard, alas, my maiden,
For love and loss like mine--
No sympathy with mind-sight memory-laden;
Only with fickle eyne.
To her mechanic artistry
My dreams are all unknown,
And why I wish that thou couldst be
But One's alone!

Mad Judy
When the hamlet hailed a birth
Judy used to cry:
When she heard our christening mirth
She would kneel and sigh.
She was crazed, we knew, and we
Humoured her infirmity.
When the daughters and the sons
Gathered them to wed,
And we like-intending ones
Danced till dawn was red,
She would rock and mutter, "More
Comers to this stony shore!"
When old Headsman Death laid hands
On a babe or twain,
She would feast, and by her brands
Sing her songs again.
What she liked we let her do,
Judy was insane, we knew.

Unto Us...
Somewhere at some time
They committed themselves to me
And so, I was!
Small, but I WAS!
Tiny, in shape
Lusting to live
I hung in my pulsing cave.
Soon they knew of me
My mother --my father.
I had no say in my being
I lived on trust
And love
Tho' I couldn't think
Each part of me was saying
A silent 'Wait for me
I will bring you love!'
I was taken
Blind, naked, defenseless
By the hand of one
Whose good name
Was graven on a brass plate
in Wimpole Street,
and dropped on the sterile floor
of a foot operated plastic waste
bucket.
There was no Queens Counsel
To take my brief.
The cot I might have warmed
Stood in Harrod's shop window.
When my passing was told
My father smiled.
No grief filled my empty space.
My death was celebrated
With tickets to see Danny la Rue
Who was pretending to be a woman
Like my mother was.

The Soldiers at Lauro
Young are our dead
Like babies they lie
The wombs they blest once
Not healed dry
And yet - too soon
Into each space
A cold earth falls
On colder face.
Quite still they lie
These fresh-cut reeds
Clutched in earth
Like winter seeds
But they will not bloom
When called by spring
To burst with leaf
And blossoming
They sleep on
In silent dust
As crosses rot
And helmets rust.

A Child's Prayer
For Morn, my dome of blue,
For Meadows, green and gay,
And Birds who love the twilight of the leaves,
Let Jesus keep me joyful when I pray.
For the big Bees that hum
And hide in bells of flowers;
For the winding roads that come
To Evening’s holy door,
May Jesus bring me grateful to his arms,
And guard my innocence for evermore.

Crowded Tub
There are too many kids in this tub
There are too many elbows to scrub
I just washed a behind that I'm sure wasn't mine
There are too many kids in this tub.

Enter This Deserted House
But please walk softly as you do.
Frogs dwell here and crickets too.
Ain't no ceiling, only blue.
Jays dwell here and sunbeams too.
Floors are flowers - take a few
Ferns grow here and daisies too.
Swoosh, whoosh - too-whit, too-woo
Bats dwell here and hoot owls too.
Ha-ha-ha, hee-hee, hoo-hoooo,
Gnomes dwell here and goblins too.
And my child, I thought you knew
I dwell here... and so do you

To My Children

Jaya Surya


GOLDEN sun of victory, born
In my life's unclouded morn,
In my lambent sky of love,
May your growing glory prove
Sacred to your consecration,
To my heart and to my nation.
Sun of victory, may you be
Sun of song and liberty.


Padmaja


Lotus-maiden, you who claim
All the sweetness of your name,
Lakshmi, fortune's queen, defend you,
Lotus-born like you, and send you
Balmy moons of love to bless you,
Gentle joy-winds to caress you.
Lotus-maiden, may you be
Fragrant of all ecstasy.


Ranadheera


Little lord of battle, hail
In your newly-tempered mail!
Learn to conquer, learn to fight
In the foremost flanks of right,
Like Valmiki's heroes bold,
Rubies girt in epic gold.
Lord of battle, may you be,
Lord of love and chivalry.


Lilamani


Limpid jewel of delight
Severed from the tender night
Of your sheltering mother-mine,
Leap and sparkle, dance and shine,
Blithely and securely set
In love's magic coronet.
Living jewel, may you be
Laughter-bound and sorrow-free.

We put the urn abord ship
We put the urn aboard ship
with this inscription:
This is the dust of little
Timas who unmarried was led
into Persephone's dark bedroom
And she being far from home, girls
her age took new-edged blades
to cut, in mourning for her,
these curls of their soft hair

Vision Of The Archangels, The
Slowly up silent peaks, the white edge of the world,
Trod four archangels, clear against the unheeding sky,
Bearing, with quiet even steps, and great wings furled,
A little dingy coffin; where a child must lie,
It was so tiny. (Yet, you had fancied, God could never
Have bidden a child turn from the spring and the sunlight,
And shut him in that lonely shell, to drop for ever
Into the emptiness and silence, into the night. . . .)
They then from the sheer summit cast, and watched it fall,
Through unknown glooms, that frail black coffin -- and therein
God's little pitiful Body lying, worn and thin,
And curled up like some crumpled, lonely flower-petal --
Till it was no more visible; then turned again
With sorrowful quiet faces downward to the plain.

The Vision of the Archangels
Slowly up silent peaks, the white edge of the world,
Trod four archangels, clear against the unheeding sky,
Bearing, with quiet even steps, and great wings furled,
A little dingy coffin; where a child must lie,
It was so tiny. (Yet, you had fancied, God could never
Have bidden a child turn from the spring and the sunlight,
And shut him in that lonely shell, to drop for ever
Into the emptiness and silence, into the night.…)
They then from the sheer summit cast, and watched it fall,
Through unknown glooms, that frail black coffin—and therein
God’s little pitiful Body lying, worn and thin,
And curled up like some crumpled, lonely flower petal—
Till it was no more visible; then turned again
With sorrowful quiet faces downward to the plain.

To James Whitcomb Riley
Your trail runs to the westward,
And mine to my own place;
There is water between our lodges,
And I have not seen your face.
But since I have read your verses
'Tis easy to guess the rest,--
Because in the hearts of the children
There is neither East nor West.
Born to a thousand fortunes
Of good or evil hap,
Once they were kings together,
Throned in a mother's lap.
Surely they know that secret--
Yellow and black and white--
When they meet as kings together
In innocent dreams at night.
By a moon they all can play with--
Grubby and grimed and unshod,
Very happy together,
And very near to God.
Your trail runs to the westward,
And mine to my own place:
There is water between our lodges,
And you cannot see my face.--
And that is well--for crying
Should neither be written nor seen,
But if I call you Smoke-in-the-Eyes,
I know you will know what I mean.

The White Seal
Oh! hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us,
And black are the waters that sparkled so green.
The moon, o'er the combers, looks downward to find us
At rest in the hollows that rustle between.
Where billow meets billow, there soft be thy pillow;
Ah, weary wee flipperling, curl at thy ease!
The storm shall not wake thee, nor shark overtake thee,
Asleep in the arms of the slow-swinging seas.
You mustn't swim till you're six weeks old,
Or your head will be sunk by your heels;
And summer gales and Killer Whales
Are bad for baby seals.
Are bad for baby seals, dear rat,
As bad as bad can be.
But splash and grow strong,
And you can't be wrong,
Child of the Open Sea!

A Counting-Out Song
What is the song the children sing,
When doorway lilacs bloom in Spring,
And the Schools are loosed, and the games are played
That were deadly earnest when Earth was made?
Hear them chattering, shrill and hard,
After dinner-time, out in the yard,
As the sides are chosen and all submit
To the chance of the lot that shall make them "It."
(Singing) "Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo!
Catch a nigger by the toe!
(If he hollers let him go!)
Eenee, Meenee. Mainee, Mo!
You-are-It!"
Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, and Mo
Were the First Big Four of the Long Ago,
When the Pole of the Earth sloped thirty degrees,
And Central Europe began to freeze,
And they needed Ambassadors staunch and stark
To steady the Tribes in the gathering dark:
But the frost was fierce and flesh was frail,
So they launched a Magic that could not fail.
(Singing) "Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo!
Hear the wolves across the snow!
Some one has to kill 'em--so
Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo
Make--you--It!"
Slowly the Glacial Epoch passed,
Central Europe thawed out at last;
And, under the slush of the melting snows
The first dim shapes of the Nations rose.
Rome, Britannia, Belgium, Gaul--
Flood and avalanche fathered them all;
And the First Big Four, as they watched the mess,
Pitied Man in his helplessness.
(Singing) "Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo!
Trouble starts When Nations grow,
Some one has to stop it--so
Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo!
Make-you-It!"
Thus it happened, but none can tell
What was the Power behind the spell--
Fear, or Duty, or Pride, or Faith--
That sent men shuddering out to death--
To cold and watching, and, worse than these,
Work, more work, when they looked for ease--
To the days discomfort, the nights despair,
In the hope of a prize that they never could share,
(Singing) "Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo!
Man is born to Toil and Woe.


One will cure another--so
Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo
Make--you--It!"
Once and again, as the Ice went North
The grass crept up to the Firth of Forth.
Once and again, as the Ice came South
The glaciers ground over Lossiemouth.
But, grass or glacier, cold or hot,
The men went out who would rather not,
And fought with the Tiger, the Pig and the Ape,
To hammer the world into decent shape.
(Singing) "Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo!
What's the use of doing so?
Ask the Gods, for we don't know;
But Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo
Make-us-It!"
Nothing is left of that terrible rune
But a tag of gibberish tacked to a tune
That ends the waiting and settles the claims
Of children arguing over their games;
For never yet has a boy been found
To shirk his turn when the turn came round;
Nor even a girl has been known to say
"If you laugh at me I shan't play."
For-- "Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo,
(Don't you let the grown-ups know!)
You may hate it ever so,
But if you're chose you're bound to go,
When Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo
Make-you-It!"

A Child's Garden
R. L. Stevenson
Now there is nothing wrong with me
Except -- I think it's called T.B.
And that is why I have to lay
Out in the garden all the day.
Our garden is not very wide
And cars go by on either side,
And make an angry-hooty noise
That rather startles little boys.
But worst of all is when they take
Me out in cars that growl and shake,
With charabancs so dreadful-near
I have to shut my eyes for fear.
But when I'm on my back again,
I watch the Croydon aeroplane
That flies across to France, and sings
Like hitting thick piano-strings.
When I am strong enough to do
The things I'm truly wishful to,
I'll never use a car or train
But always have an aeroplane;
And just go zooming round and round,
And frighten Nursey with the sound,
And see the angel-side of clouds,
And spit on all those motor-crowds!

Goodbat Nightman
God bless all policemen
and fighters of crime,
May thieves go to jail
for a very long time.
They've had a hard day
helping clean up the town,
Now they hang from the mantelpiece
both upside down.
A glass of warm blood
and then straight up the stairs,
Batman and Robin
are saying their prayers.
* * *
They've locked all the doors
and they've put out the bat,
Put on their batjamas
(They like doing that)
They've filled their batwater-bottles
made their batbeds,
With two springy battresses
for sleepy batheads.
They're closing red eyes
and they're counting black sheep,
Batman and Robin
are falling asleep.

Two Children

Give me your hand, oh little one!
Like children be we two;
Yet I am old, my day is done
That barely breaks for you.
A baby-basket hard you hold,
With in it cherries four:
You cherish them as men do gold,
And count them o'er.

And then you stumble in your walk;
The cherries scattered lie.
You pick them up with foolish talk
And foolish glad am I,
When you wipe one quite clean of dust
And give it unto me;
So in the baby-basket just
Are three.

All this is simple, I confess,
A moment piled with peace;
Yet loving men have died for less,
And will till time shall cease. . . .
A silken hand in crinkled one-O
Little Innocence!
O blessed moment in the son
E'er I go hence!

Susie


My daughter Susie, aged two,
Apes me in every way,

For as my household chores I do
With brooms she loves to play.

A scrubbing brush to her is dear;
Ah! Though my soul it vex,

My bunch of cuteness has, I fear,
Kitchen complex.

My dream was that she might go far,
And play or sing or dance;
Aye, even be a movie star
Of glamour and romance.
But no more with such hope I think,
For now her fondest wish is
To draw a chair up to the sink
And wash the dishes.

Yet when you put it to a test
In ups and downs of life,
A maiden's mission may be best
To make a good house-wife;
To bake, to cook, to knit, to lave:
And so I pray that Sue
Will keep a happy hearth and have
A baby too.

Strip Teaser

My precious grand-child, aged two,
Is eager to unlace one shoe,

And then the other;
Her cotton socks she'll deftly doff
Despite the mild reproaches of

Her mother.

Around the house she loves to fare,
And with her rosy tootsies bare,

Pit-pat the floor;
And though remonstrances we make
She presently decides to take

Off something more.

Her pinafore she next unties,
And then before we realise,

Her dress drops down;
Her panties and her brassiere,
Her chemise and her underwear

Are round her strown.

And now she dances all about,
As naked as a new-caught trout,

With impish glee;
And though she's beautiful like that,
(A cherubim, but not so fat),

Quite shocked are we.

And so we dread with dim dismay
Some day she may her charms display

In skimpy wear;
Aye, even in a gee-string she
May frolic on the stage of the

Folies-Bèrgere

But e'er she does, I hope she'll read
This worldly wise and warning screed,

That to conceal,
Unto the ordinary man
Is often more alluring than

To ALL reveal.

My Will

I've made my Will. I don't believe
In luxury and wealth;
And to those loving ones who grieve
My age and frailing health
I give the meed to soothe their ways
That they may happy be,
And pass serenely all their days
In snug security.

That duty done, I leave behind
The all I have to give
To crippled children and the blind
Who lamentably live;
Hoping my withered hand may freight
To happiness a few
Poor innocents whom cruel fate
Has cheated of their due.

A am no grey philanthropist,
Too humble is my lot
Yet how I'm glad to give the grist
My singing mill has brought.
For I have had such lyric days,
So rich, so full, so sweet,
That I with gratitude and praise
Would make my life complete.

I'VE MADE MY WILL: now near the end,
At peace with all mankind,
To children lame I would be friend,
And brother to the blind . . .
And if there be a God, I pray
He bless my last bequest,
And in His love and pity say:
"Good servant,--rest!"

Maids In May

Three maids there were in meadow bright,
The eldest less then seven;
Their eyes were dancing with delight,
And innocent as Heaven.


Wild flowers they wound with tender glee,
Their cheeks with rapture rosy;
All radiant they smiled at me,
When I besought a posy.


She gave me a columbine,
And one a poppy brought me;
The tiniest, with eyes ashine,
A simple daisy sought me.


And as I went my sober way,
I heard their careless laughter;
Their hearts too happy with to-day
To care for what comes after.


. . . . . . .

That's long ago; they're gone, all three,
To walk amid the shadows;
Forgotten is their lyric glee
In still and sunny meadows.


For Columbine loved life too well,
And went adventure fairing;
And sank into the pit of hell,
And passed but little caring.
While Poppy was a poor man's wife,
And children had a-plenty;
And went, worn out with toil and strife
When she was five-and-twenty.


And Daisy died while yet a child,
As fragile blossoms perish,
When Winter winds are harsh and wild,
With none to shield and cherish.


Ah me! How fate is dark and dour
To little Children of the Poor.

Joey


I thought I would go daft when Joey died.
He was my first, and wise beyond his years.
For nigh a hundred nights I cried and cried,
Until my weary eyes burned up my tears.
Willie and Rosie tried to comfort me:
A woeful, weeping family were we.


I was a widow with no friends at all,
Ironing men's shirts to buy my kiddies grub;
And then one day a lawyer came to call,
Me with my arms deep in the washing-tub.
The gentleman who ran poor Joey down
Was willing to give us a thousand poun'.


What a godsend! It meant goodbye to care,
The fear of being dumped out on the street.
Rosie and Willie could have wool to wear,
And more than bread and margerine to eat . . .
To Joey's broken little legs we owe
Our rescue from a fate of want and woe.


How happily he hurried home to me,
Bringing a new-baked, crisp-brown loaf of bread.
The headlights of the car he did not see,
And when help came they thought that he was dead.
He stared with wonder from a face so wan . . .
A long, last look and he was gone,--was gone.


We've comfort now, and yet it hurts to know
We owe our joy to little, laughing Joe.