ABOUT AND ROUNDABOUT

In Mr. Nahum'sThe Other Worlde,as I have said on page xxx, there were many passages written about and roundabout the poems contained in it. Some of these I copied out. With others that I have added since, they appear in the following pages. If the reader prefer poems and poemsonlyin such a collection as this, would he of his kindness and courtesy ignore everything else? Otherwise, will he please forgive any blunders he may discover?

This jingle (like Nos. 15, 16 and others) is one of hundreds of nursery and dandling rhymes which I found in Mr. Nahum's book. Compared with more formal poems they are like wild flowers—pimpernel, eyebright, thyme, woodruff, and others even tinier, even quieter, but having their own private and complete little beauty if looked at closely. Who made them, how old they are; nobody knows. But when Noah's Ark stranded on the slopes of Mount Ararat, maybe a blossoming weed or two was nodding at the open third-storey window out of which over the waters of the flood the dove had followed the raven, and there, rejoicing in the sunshine and the green, sat Japheth's wife dandling little Magog on her lap, and crooning him some such lullaby.

On the one side is printed the old Scots, and on the other the best I can do to put it into the English of our own time. According to the dictionary the thistle-cock that cries shame on the sleepers still drowsing in their beds is the corn-bunting—a cousin of the yellow-hammer. He has a small harsh monotonous voice as if for the very purpose. Whereas the nightingale might seem to cry, "Nay, nay: it is in dreams you wander. Happy ones! Sleep on; sleep on."

Whatever fate befell the Sluggard, I should like to have taken a walk in his garden, among those branching thistles, green thorns and briers. Maybe he sailed off at last to the Isle of Nightmare, or to the land where it is always afternoon, or was wrecked in Yawning Gap. He must, at any rate, have had an even heavier head than Dr. Watts supposed if he never so much as lifted it from his pillow to brood awhile on that still, verdurous scene. And the birds!

Indeed, to lie, between sleep and wake, when daybreak is brightening of an April or a May morning, and so listen to the far-away singing of a thrush or to the whistling of a robin or a wren is to seem to be transported back into the garden of Eden. Dreamers, too, may call themselves travellers.

Mr. Nahum's picture to this rhyme was of a man in rags looking into a small round mirror or looking-glass, but at what you couldn't see.

—(as do the happy to the New Moon, for luck), for his merchandise is being wafted over the sea under the guidance of the Seaman's, or Ship, or Lode, or Pole Star. It shines in the constellation of the Little Bear, and "is the cheefe marke whereby mariners governe their course in saylings by nyghte." To find the "marke," look towards the north some cloudless night for the constellation of Seven Stars called the Plough or the Dipper or Charles's Wain (or Waggon), which "enclyneth his ravisshinge courses abouten the soverein heighte of the worlde" day and night throughout the year. Its hinder stars (Dubhe and Merak) are named "the pointers," because if you follow the line of them with the eye into the empty skies, the next brightish star it will alight on is the Seaman's Star. Close beside the second of the seven is a mere speck of a star. And that is called by country people Jack-by-the-middle-horse. On this same star looked Shakespeare—as did the 1st Carrier in hisHenry IV.: "Heigh-ho, an't be not foure by the day, He behanged. Charles' waine is over the near Chimney, and yet our horse not packt"; and as did his 2nd Gentleman inOthello:

Montano.What from the Cape can you discerne at Sea?1st Gentleman.Nothing at all, it is a high-wrought Flood:I cannot 'twixt the Heaven, and the MaineDescry a Saile....2nd Gentleman.... Do but stand upon the Foaming Shore,The chidden Billow seemes to pelt the Clowds,The wind-shaked-Surge, with high and monstrous Maine,Seemes to cast water on the burning Beare,And quench the Guards of the ever-fixèd Pole.I never did like mollestation viewOn the enchafèd Flood....

Montano.What from the Cape can you discerne at Sea?

1st Gentleman.Nothing at all, it is a high-wrought Flood:I cannot 'twixt the Heaven, and the MaineDescry a Saile....

1st Gentleman.Nothing at all, it is a high-wrought Flood:

I cannot 'twixt the Heaven, and the Maine

Descry a Saile....

2nd Gentleman.... Do but stand upon the Foaming Shore,The chidden Billow seemes to pelt the Clowds,The wind-shaked-Surge, with high and monstrous Maine,Seemes to cast water on the burning Beare,And quench the Guards of the ever-fixèd Pole.I never did like mollestation viewOn the enchafèd Flood....

2nd Gentleman.... Do but stand upon the Foaming Shore,

The chidden Billow seemes to pelt the Clowds,

The wind-shaked-Surge, with high and monstrous Maine,

Seemes to cast water on the burning Beare,

And quench the Guards of the ever-fixèd Pole.

I never did like mollestation view

On the enchafèd Flood....

Faintly shimmering, too, in the northern heavens is that other numerous starry cluster, known the world over asSeven—to us as the Seven Sisters or the Pleiades. A strange seven; for only six stars are now clearly visible to the naked eye, one having vanished, it would seem, within human memory. When? where?—none can tell. They play in light as close together as dewdrops in a cobweb hung from thorn to thorn. Nearby, on winter's cold breast burns the most marvellous of the constellations—the huntsman Orion, with his Rigel and Bellatrix and Betelgeuse; his dog Sirius at his heels. "Seek him that maketh the Seven Stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night...."

At a first reading, perhaps, this line will not appear to flow so smoothly as the rest. But linger an instant on the wordchild, and you will have revealed to yourself one of Shelley's, and indeed one of every poet's loveliest devices with words—to let the music of his verse accord with its meaning, and at the same time to please and charm the ear with a slight variation from the regular beat and accent of the metre. So, too, in the middle lines of the next stanza. This variation, which is called rhythm,is the very proof of its writer's sincerity. For if the sound of his verse (or of his voice) rings false, he cannot have completely realised what he was writing or saying. When a man says what he means, he says it asif he meant it. Thetuneof what he says sounds right. When a man doesnotmean what he says, he finds it all but impossible to say it as if he did. Thetunegoes wrong.

Just so with reading. So from a gay and tinyCompendious English Grammarof 1780 I have borrowed these four brief wholesome rules for reading:

(1) ... Observe well the pauses, accents and emphases; and never stop but where the sense will admit of it.

(2) Humour your voice a little, according to the subject....

(3) Do not read too fast, lest [in lip or mind] you get a habit of stammering; adding or omitting words; and be sure that your understanding keep pace with your tongue.

(4) In reading Verse, pronounce every word just as if it were prose, observing the stops with great exactness, and giving each word its proper accent; and if it be not harmonious, the Poet, and not the Reader, is to blame."

Better, perhaps, be sure of your ear before you blame the poet. But in general, if these rules are followed, there can be little danger of reading like a parrot, or like a small boy in his first breeches at a Dame's school. Tothinkwhile one reads; that is the main thing: so as not to be, as Sidney says,—just

... like a child that some fair book doth find,With gilded leaves or coloured vellum plays,Or, at the most, on some fair pictures stays,But never heeds the fruit of writer's mind.

... like a child that some fair book doth find,

With gilded leaves or coloured vellum plays,

Or, at the most, on some fair pictures stays,

But never heeds the fruit of writer's mind.

I found a story about this dancing in Mrs. Wright'sRustic Speech and Folklore. It is the story of a woman who lived in a district called Hockley, in the parish of Broseley. She said that she had heard of such "dancing" but did not believe it to be true, "till on Easter morning last, I got up early, and then I saw the sun dance, and dance, and dance, three times, and I called to my husband and said, 'Rowland, Rowland, get up and see the sun dance!' I used," she said, "not to believe it, but now I can never doubt more." The neighbours agreed with her that the sun did dance on Easter morning, and thatsome of them had seen it. "Seeing," goes the old proverb, "is believing"—which is true no less of the "inward eye." I once tried to comfort a very little boy who was unhappy because there was a Bear under his bed. Candle in hand, I talked and talked, and proved that there wasn't a real bear for miles and miles around, not at any rate until we reached the Zoo, and there—black, brown, sloth, spectacled, grizzly and polar alike—all of them, poor creatures, were cabined, cribbed and shut up in barred cages. He listened, tears still shining in his eyes, his small face sharp and clear. "Why certainly, certainlynot," I ended, "there can't be a real bear for miles around!" He smiled as if pitying me. "Ah yes, Daddie," he answered with a die-away sob, "but, you see, you's talking ofrealbears, and minewasn'treal."

It was a jolly bed in sooth,Of oak as strong as Babel.And there slept Kit and Sall and RuthAs sound as maids are able.Ay—three in one—and there they dreamed,Their bright young eyes hid under;Nor hearkened when the tempest streamedNor recked the rumbling thunder.For marvellous regions strayed they in,Each moon-far from the other—Ruth in her childhood, Kit in heaven,And Sall with ghost for lover.But soon as ever sun shone sweet,And birds sang, Praise for rain, O—Leapt out of bed three pair of feetAnd danced on earth again, O!

It was a jolly bed in sooth,Of oak as strong as Babel.And there slept Kit and Sall and RuthAs sound as maids are able.

It was a jolly bed in sooth,

Of oak as strong as Babel.

And there slept Kit and Sall and Ruth

As sound as maids are able.

Ay—three in one—and there they dreamed,Their bright young eyes hid under;Nor hearkened when the tempest streamedNor recked the rumbling thunder.

Ay—three in one—and there they dreamed,

Their bright young eyes hid under;

Nor hearkened when the tempest streamed

Nor recked the rumbling thunder.

For marvellous regions strayed they in,Each moon-far from the other—Ruth in her childhood, Kit in heaven,And Sall with ghost for lover.

For marvellous regions strayed they in,

Each moon-far from the other—

Ruth in her childhood, Kit in heaven,

And Sall with ghost for lover.

But soon as ever sun shone sweet,And birds sang, Praise for rain, O—Leapt out of bed three pair of feetAnd danced on earth again, O!

But soon as ever sun shone sweet,

And birds sang, Praise for rain, O—

Leapt out of bed three pair of feet

And danced on earth again, O!

This, like No. 2, and the next song must be as old as the dew-ponds on the Downs. They were wont to be sung, I have read, by five or six men, with a fiddle, or flute, or clarionet accompaniment. When I was a boy I can remember one First of May seeing a Jack-in-the-Green in the street—a man in a kindof wicker cage hung about with flowers and leaves—with Maid Marian. Friar Tuck and the rest, dancing and singing beside him. A great friend of mine, when she was a little girl of eight, was so frightened at sight of this leafy prancing creature on her way to school that she turned about and ran for a mile without stopping.

There is far too little of Geoffrey Chaucer's—that most lovable, shrewd, compassionate, and natural of poets—in this book. There was much more of him, I noticed, in Mr. Nahum's Tome II. At first sight his words look a little strange; but not for long; and if every dotted letter is made a syllable of, his rhythm will flow like water over bright green waterweed.

It is a curious, though little thing, that while, among the one hundred and seventy varieties of flowers Shakespeare mentions, he has no less than fifty-seven several references to the rose, twenty-one to the green grass, eighteen to violets, and even to the serviceable but rank nettle a round dozen, he has but a scant five to Chaucer's beloved daisy. Flowers, it is true, as says Canon Ellacombe (who collected all such references into his delight-full book,Plant-lore and Garden-craft of Shakespeare), never sweeten the Plays for their own sake alone, and there are no foxgloves, snowdrops or forget-me-nots in them at all. Still, had he loved daisies as children do, he could hardly have resisted them even for "their own sake alone." Is not bairnwort another name for the daisy?

"A yellow cup, it hath," says Pliny, "and the same is crowned, as it were with a garland, consisting of five and fifty little leaves, set round about it in manner of fine pales. These be flowers of the meadow, and most of such are of no use at all." No use at all, none—except only to make skylark of every heart whose owner has eyes in his head for a daisy's simple looks, its marvellous making, and the sheer happiness of their multitudes wide open in the sun or round-headed and adrowse in the evening twilight.

Chaucer's picture portrait is well known. So is that in his own words in theCanterbury Tales. But here is another, less familiar, by Robert Greene—of "Sir Jeffery Chaucer," as he calls him. Water chamlet is a rich coloured silken plush, and a whittell is a knife:

His stature was not very tall,Leane he was, his legs were small,Hosed within a stock of redA buttoned bonnet on his head,From under which did hang, I weene,Silver haires both bright and sheene,His beard was white, trimmèd round,His count'nance blithe and merry found,A Sleevelesse Iacket large and wide,With many pleights and skirts Side,Of water Chamlet did he weare,A whittell by his belt he beare,His shooes were cornèd broad before,His Inkhorne at his side he wore,And in his hand he bore a booke,Thus did this auntient Poet looke.

His stature was not very tall,

Leane he was, his legs were small,

Hosed within a stock of red

A buttoned bonnet on his head,

From under which did hang, I weene,

Silver haires both bright and sheene,

His beard was white, trimmèd round,

His count'nance blithe and merry found,

A Sleevelesse Iacket large and wide,

With many pleights and skirts Side,

Of water Chamlet did he weare,

A whittell by his belt he beare,

His shooes were cornèd broad before,

His Inkhorne at his side he wore,

And in his hand he bore a booke,

Thus did this auntient Poet looke.

—which means, I gather, that while the nightingale was—even into the dusk of dawn—yet singing her "air" or "descant," the lark joined in as if reading her notes from the daybreak starsprickingthe sky.

Four birds, I suppose, have part in this: cuckoo, nightingale (yoog, yoog), green-finch (?) and owl.

I rose anon, and thought I wouldė goneInto the woods, to hear the birdis sing,When that the misty vapour was agone,And cleare and fairė was the morrowing;The dew, also, like silver in shining,Upon the leaves, as any baumė sweet.And in I went to hear the birdis song,Which on the branches, both in plain and vale,So loudly y-sang, that all the wood y-rang,Like as it should shiver in pieces smale;And as me thoughten that the nightingaleWith so great might her voice began out-wrest,Right as her heart for love would all to-brest.John Lydgate

I rose anon, and thought I wouldė gone

Into the woods, to hear the birdis sing,

When that the misty vapour was agone,

And cleare and fairė was the morrowing;

The dew, also, like silver in shining,

Upon the leaves, as any baumė sweet.

And in I went to hear the birdis song,Which on the branches, both in plain and vale,So loudly y-sang, that all the wood y-rang,Like as it should shiver in pieces smale;And as me thoughten that the nightingaleWith so great might her voice began out-wrest,Right as her heart for love would all to-brest.John Lydgate

And in I went to hear the birdis song,

Which on the branches, both in plain and vale,

So loudly y-sang, that all the wood y-rang,

Like as it should shiver in pieces smale;

And as me thoughten that the nightingale

With so great might her voice began out-wrest,

Right as her heart for love would all to-brest.

John Lydgate

Thou that desir'st to fish with line and hook,Be it in pool, in river, or in brook,To bless thy bait and make the fish to bite,Lo, here's a means! if thou canst hit it right:Take Gum of Life, fine beat, and laid in soakIn oil well drawn from that which kills the oak,Fish where thou wilt, thou shalt have sport thy fill;When twenty fail, thou shalt be sure to kill.

Thou that desir'st to fish with line and hook,

Be it in pool, in river, or in brook,

To bless thy bait and make the fish to bite,

Lo, here's a means! if thou canst hit it right:

Take Gum of Life, fine beat, and laid in soak

In oil well drawn from that which kills the oak,

Fish where thou wilt, thou shalt have sport thy fill;

When twenty fail, thou shalt be sure to kill.

It's perfect and good,If well understood;Else not to be toldFor silver or gold.

It's perfect and good,

If well understood;

Else not to be told

For silver or gold.

So advises Master Will. Lauson in theSecrets of Angling, which was published in 1653; the ingredients (oringredimentsas I used to say when I was a child) of his "gum of life" beingCocculus Juliæ,Assafoetida, Honey, and Wheat-flour. The "that which kills the oak," I suppose, is ivy. But it looks as if there may have been a wink in his eye—to welcome the green in his reader's.

Here, on the same theme, are a few lines from a poem by Mr. Robert Bridges:

... Sometimes an angler comes, and drops his hookWithin its hidden depths, and 'gainst a treeLeaning his rod, reads in some pleasant book,Forgetting soon his pride of fishery,And dreams, or falls asleep,While curious fishes peepAbout his nibbled bait, or scornfullyDart off and rise and leap....

... Sometimes an angler comes, and drops his hook

Within its hidden depths, and 'gainst a tree

Leaning his rod, reads in some pleasant book,

Forgetting soon his pride of fishery,

And dreams, or falls asleep,

While curious fishes peep

About his nibbled bait, or scornfully

Dart off and rise and leap....

And these are by J. Wolcot:

Why flyest thou away with fear?Trust me there's naught of danger near,I have no wicked hookeAll covered with a snaring bait,Alas, to tempt thee to thy fate,And dragge thee from the brooke....Enjoy thy stream, O harmless fish;And when an angler for his dish,Through gluttony's vile sin,Attempts, a wretch, to pull thee out,God give thee strength, O gentle trout,To pull the raskall in!

Why flyest thou away with fear?Trust me there's naught of danger near,I have no wicked hookeAll covered with a snaring bait,Alas, to tempt thee to thy fate,And dragge thee from the brooke....

Why flyest thou away with fear?

Trust me there's naught of danger near,

I have no wicked hooke

All covered with a snaring bait,

Alas, to tempt thee to thy fate,

And dragge thee from the brooke....

Enjoy thy stream, O harmless fish;And when an angler for his dish,Through gluttony's vile sin,Attempts, a wretch, to pull thee out,God give thee strength, O gentle trout,To pull the raskall in!

Enjoy thy stream, O harmless fish;

And when an angler for his dish,

Through gluttony's vile sin,

Attempts, a wretch, to pull thee out,

God give thee strength, O gentle trout,

To pull the raskall in!

A less common and more skilful sport than fly, hook and bait, or even "tickling" can afford is to share their watery chaos with the fish, and catch them with the hands. This needs rare skill and cunning and—a disguise! "For dyeing of your hairs," says Isaac Walton inThe Compleat Angler, "do it thus: Take a pint of strong ale, half a pound of soot, and a little quantity of the juice of walnut-tree leaves, and an equal quantity of alum; put these together, into a pot, pan, or pipkin, and boil them half an hour; and having so done, let it cool; and being cold, put your hair into it, and there let it lie; it will turn your hair to be a kind of water or glass-colour or greenish; and the longer you let it lie, the deeper coloured it will be. You might be taught to make many other colours, but it is to little purpose; for doubtless the water-colour or glass-coloured hair is the most choice and the most useful for an angler, but let it not be too green."

First thing in the early morning, if you go out on St. Valentine's Day, which is the 14th day of February, you will meet, if you meet anybody, your soon-to-be-loved one. So too the birds. In my young days, folks sent the daintiest pictures to their sweethearts on this day. Mr. Nahum had a drawer half full of them—with a few locks of hair and some withered flowers. And one or two of these Valentines were of beaten gold, with images of lovely things upon them, as if from another planet.

"This morning came up to my wife's bedside, I being up dressing myself, little Will Mercer to be her Valentine; and brought her name writ upon blue paper in gold letters, done by himself, very pretty...." Mr. Samuel Pepys'sDiary.

To-morrow is S. Valentine's day,All in the morning betime,And I a Maid at your WindowTo be your Valentine!Ophelia's Song.

To-morrow is S. Valentine's day,

All in the morning betime,

And I a Maid at your Window

To be your Valentine!

Ophelia's Song.

If you would make a Lemon Sillabub (as advised by Mrs. Charlotte Mason, "a Professed Housekeeper, who from about 1740 had upwards of Thirty Years experience in Families of the First Fashion") take "a Pint of cream, a pint of white wine, the rind of two lemons grated, and the juice. Sugar to the taste. Let it stand some time; mill or whip it. Lay the froth on a sieve; put the remainder into glasses. Lay on the froth." Mr. Nahum must have had a fancy for Cookery Books; there were dozens of them in his tower room. Indeed, the next best thing to eating a good dish is to read how it is made; and somehow the old "cookbook" writers learned to write a most excellent and appetising English. Here is another recipe fromDelightes for Ladies, of 1608—a dainty that would eat uncommonly well with a sillabub:—"To make a marchpane.—Take two poundes of almonds being blanched, and dryed in a sieve over the fire, beate them in a stone mortar, and when they bee small mixe them with two pounde of sugar beeing finely beaten, adding two or three spoonefuls of rosewater, and that will keep your almonds from oiling: when your paste is beaten fine, drive it thin with a rowling pin, and so lay it on a bottom of wafers, then raise up a little edge on the side, and so bake it, then yce it with rosewater and sugar, then put it in the oven again, and when you see your yce is risen up and drie, then take it out of the oven and garnish it with pretie conceipts, as birdes and beasts being cast out of standing moldes. Sticke long comfits upright in it, cast biskets and carrowaies in it, and so serve it; guild it before you serve it: you may also print of thismarchpanepaste in your molds for banqueting dishes. And of this paste our comfit makers at this day make their letters, knots, armes, escutcheons, beasts, birds, and other fancies." Also pygmy castles and suchlike, for dessert, which the guests would demolish with sugar-plums.

"Good thou, save mee a piece of Marchpane, and as thou lovest me, let the Porter let in Susan Grindstone and Nell...."Romeo and Juliet

"Good thou, save mee a piece of Marchpane, and as thou lovest me, let the Porter let in Susan Grindstone and Nell...."

Romeo and Juliet

"What other fire could be a better image of the fire which is there, than the fire which is here? Or what other earth thanthis, of the earth which is there?" So said Plotinus, and "I know," said Blake, "that this world is a world of imagination and vision. I see everything I paint in this world, but everybody does not see alike. To the eye of a miser a guinea is far more beautiful than the sun, and a bag worn with the use of money has more beautiful proportions than a vine filled with grapes. The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way.... Some scarce see Nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, Nature is Imagination itself. As a man is, so he sees. As the eye is formed, such are its powers. You certainly mistake, when you say that the visions of fancy are not to be found in this world. To me this world is all one continued vision." ... Indeed, when Blake was a child, he saw on Peckham Rye a tree, full, not of birds, but of angels; and his poems show how marvellously clear were the eyes with which he looked at the things of Nature.

In the year 1872, an old lady might have been seen driving across the Rye in her silvery carriage; and she came to where, under a flowering tree, sat a small boy—the locks of hair upon his head like sheaves of cowslips, his eyes like speedwells, and he in very bright clothes. And he was a-laughing up into the tree. She stopped her carriage and said to him almost as if she were more angry than happy, "What are you laughing at, child?" And he said, "At the sparrows, ma'am." "Mere sparrows!" says she, "but why?" "Because they were saying," says he, "here comes across the Rye a blind old horse, a blind old coachman, and a blind old woman." "But I am not blind," says she. "Nor are they not 'meresparrows'," said the child. And at that the old lady was looking out of her carriage at no child, but at a small bush, in bud, of gorse.

—as does Robert Herrick's child, in his "Grace":

Here a little child I stand,Heaving up my either hand;Cold as Paddocks though they be,Here I lift them up to Thee,For a Benizon to fallOn our meat, and on us all.Amen.

Here a little child I stand,

Heaving up my either hand;

Cold as Paddocks though they be,

Here I lift them up to Thee,

For a Benizon to fall

On our meat, and on us all.Amen.

A paddock is a frog or a toad, it seems. To either small cold hand there are four cold fingers and a thumb; and in old times, says Halliwell, our ancestors had distinct names for each of the five toes and for each of the five fingers. The fingers were called thumb, toucher, longman, leche-man, little-man: leche-man being the ring-finger, because in that "there is a sinew very tender and small that reaches to the heart." In Essex they used to call them (and still may)—Tom Thumbkin, Bess Bumpkin, Long Linkin, Bill Wilkin, and Little Dick. In Scotland: Thumbkin, Lickpot, Langman, Berrybarn and Pirlie Winkie.

And here are some more from Dr. Courtenay Dunn'sNatural History of the Child—a book which is graced with as handsome a frontispiece as ever I've seen:

Toes:

So (if you wish) you can secretly name not only your fingers, toes, rooms, chairs and tables, etc., but also the stars in their courses, the trees in your orchard, and have your own privy countersign for the flowers you like best. "Give a dog a bad name, and hang him," says the old proverb. Give anything agoodname, and it is yours for ever. There is the tale of the unhappy gardener in the Isle of Rumm who without ill intention called a snapdragon an antirrhinum. And there arose out of the hillside a Monster named Zobj—but I haven't the space for the rest. The gardener of course meant well; but when he heard the Voice counting his last moments, not in common English, but in what Wensleydale Knitters still remember of the Norse—Yahn, Jyahn, Tether, Mether, Mumph, Hither, Lither, Auver, Dauver, Die—well, he died before he was due, so to speak.

While we are on this subject, here is a Face Rhyme:

Bo PeeperNose DreeperChin ChopperWhite LopperRed RagAnd Little Gap.

Bo Peeper

Nose Dreeper

Chin Chopper

White Lopper

Red Rag

And Little Gap.

This is another:

Here sits the Lord Mayor:Here sit his men;Here sits the cockadoodle;Here sits the hen;Here sits the little chickens;Here they run in;Chinchopper, chinchopper, chinchopper chin.

Here sits the Lord Mayor:

Here sit his men;

Here sits the cockadoodle;

Here sits the hen;

Here sits the little chickens;

Here they run in;

Chinchopper, chinchopper, chinchopper chin.

The next three are foot rhymes, very soothing at times to fractious babies. The first is common in London, etc.:

This little pig went to market;This little pig stayed at home;This little pig had roast beef;This little pig had the bone;This little pig criedWee-wee-wee-wee-wee!Allthe way home.

This little pig went to market;

This little pig stayed at home;

This little pig had roast beef;

This little pig had the bone;

This little pig criedWee-wee-wee-wee-wee!

Allthe way home.

The second comes from the Isle of Wight:

This gurt pig zays, I wants meat;T'other one zays, Where'll ye hay et?This one zays, In gramfer's barn;T'other one zays, Week! Week! I can't get over the dreshel.

This gurt pig zays, I wants meat;

T'other one zays, Where'll ye hay et?

This one zays, In gramfer's barn;

T'other one zays, Week! Week! I can't get over the dreshel.

And this is from Scotland:

This ain biggit the baurn,This ain stealt the corn,This ain stood and saw,This ain ran awa',An' wee Pirlie Winkie paid for a'.

This ain biggit the baurn,

This ain stealt the corn,

This ain stood and saw,

This ain ran awa',

An' wee Pirlie Winkie paid for a'.

And last; here is a dance-babbie-on-knee (or This-is-the-way) rhyme; also from Scotland:

The doggies gaed to the mill,This way and that way;They took a lick out o'thiswife's pokeAnd they took a lick out o'thatwife's poke,And a loup in the lead, and a dip in the dam,And gaed walloping, walloping, walloping,Hame.

The doggies gaed to the mill,

This way and that way;

They took a lick out o'thiswife's poke

And they took a lick out o'thatwife's poke,

And a loup in the lead, and a dip in the dam,

And gaed walloping, walloping, walloping,Hame.

And no doubt came to the conclusion expressed in the sixth stanza of Robert Herrick'sTernary of Littles, upon a Pipkin of Jelly sent to a Lady:

A little Saint best fits a little Shrine,A little Prop best fits a little Vine,As my small Cruse best fits my little Wine.A little Seed best fits a little Soyle,A little Trade best fits a little Toyle,As my small Jarre best fits my little Oyle.A little Bin best fits a little Bread,A little Garland fits a little Head,As my small stuffe best fits my little Shed.A little Hearth best fits a little Fire,A little Chappell fits a little Quire,As my small Bell best fits my little Spire.A little streame best fits a little Boat,A little lead best fits a little Float,As my small Pipe best fits my little note.A little meat best fits a little bellie,As sweetly, Lady, give me leave to tell ye,This little Pipkin fits this little Jellie.

A little Saint best fits a little Shrine,A little Prop best fits a little Vine,As my small Cruse best fits my little Wine.

A little Saint best fits a little Shrine,

A little Prop best fits a little Vine,

As my small Cruse best fits my little Wine.

A little Seed best fits a little Soyle,A little Trade best fits a little Toyle,As my small Jarre best fits my little Oyle.

A little Seed best fits a little Soyle,

A little Trade best fits a little Toyle,

As my small Jarre best fits my little Oyle.

A little Bin best fits a little Bread,A little Garland fits a little Head,As my small stuffe best fits my little Shed.

A little Bin best fits a little Bread,

A little Garland fits a little Head,

As my small stuffe best fits my little Shed.

A little Hearth best fits a little Fire,A little Chappell fits a little Quire,As my small Bell best fits my little Spire.

A little Hearth best fits a little Fire,

A little Chappell fits a little Quire,

As my small Bell best fits my little Spire.

A little streame best fits a little Boat,A little lead best fits a little Float,As my small Pipe best fits my little note.

A little streame best fits a little Boat,

A little lead best fits a little Float,

As my small Pipe best fits my little note.

A little meat best fits a little bellie,As sweetly, Lady, give me leave to tell ye,This little Pipkin fits this little Jellie.

A little meat best fits a little bellie,

As sweetly, Lady, give me leave to tell ye,

This little Pipkin fits this little Jellie.

And the fact that this or any other poem is printed at this end of the book instead of at the other does not mean that I am any the less thankful to have it or that Mr. Nahum left it out of his.

Only the spelling of this lovely and ancient little carol has been slightly changed.

Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,And hushed with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,Under the canopies of costly state,And lulled with sound of sweetest melody?O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vileIn loathsome beds, and leavest the kingly couchA watch-case or a common 'larum-bell?Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mastSeal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brainsIn cradle of the rude imperious surge,And in the visitation of the winds,Who take the ruffian billows by the top,Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging themWith deafening clamour in the slippery clouds,That, with the hurly, death itself awakes?Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy reposeTo the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude;And in the calmest and most stillest night,With all appliances and means to boot,Deny it to a king? Then happy low, lie down!Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.Henry IV. Part ii.

Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,

Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,

And hushed with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,

Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,

Under the canopies of costly state,

And lulled with sound of sweetest melody?

O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile

In loathsome beds, and leavest the kingly couch

A watch-case or a common 'larum-bell?

Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast

Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains

In cradle of the rude imperious surge,

And in the visitation of the winds,

Who take the ruffian billows by the top,

Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them

With deafening clamour in the slippery clouds,

That, with the hurly, death itself awakes?

Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose

To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude;

And in the calmest and most stillest night,

With all appliances and means to boot,

Deny it to a king? Then happy low, lie down!

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

Henry IV. Part ii.

For many years I read this poem as if the accents in the first line of each stanza fell on the first and third word—the two "I's." It was stupid of me, for clearly the accent should fall (lightly) on the second syllable of the "remembers." Apart from the accents or stresses in a line of verse, there is the rise and fall of the voice, a kind of tune in thesayingof it. If the right tune is not caught, then the difference is as much as if one sniffed a wallflower and it smelt like African mimosa. And to me, as to hundreds of thousands of Englishmen, this poem is as familiar, long-endeared and refreshing as wallflower, Sweet William, or Old Man. This is the second or third time I have made remarks about the rhythm, lilt or tune of a poem; and it won't be the last. May I be forgiven, for as Chaucer wrote to his small son Louis when he was sharing with him his love of astronomy: "Soothly me seemeth betre to writen unto a child twice a good sentence, then he forget it ones." As for his elders, even thrice may be short commons.

Hold up a flower between eye and sun, or even candle-flame, and it seems little but its own waxen hue and colour. Moonlight is too pale; the petals remain opaque. In the moon's light, indeed, blueness is scarcely distinguishable from shadowiness; red darkens but yellow pales, and the fairest flowers of all wake in her beams—jasmine, convolvulus, evening-primrose—as if they not only shared her radiance but returned a glowwormlike fuminess of their own.

Once, long before I came to Thrae, having plucked for my mother a few convolvulus flowers, I remember when I was just about to give them into her hand I discovered that the beautiful cups of delight had enwreathed themselves together, and had returned as it were to the bud, never to reopen. I was but a child, and this odd little disappointment was so extreme that I burst out crying.

See just above, No. 30: and for proof of the curious obedience of words to any bidden rhythm it is interesting to compare this poem with its next neighbours. Mr. Frost's colt is called "a little Morgan," because he was of a famous breed of horses of that name which are the pride of the State of Vermont.

Only a single copy of the old play,Mundus et Infans, from which this fragment is taken, is known to be in existence. It was printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1522; and was written roundabout 1500.

The lines need a slow reading to get the run and lilt of them: and even at that they jog and creak like an old farm-cart. But the boy, Dalyaunce, if one takes a little pains, will come gradually out of them as clear to the eye as if you had met him in the street to-day, on his way to "schole" for yet another "docking."

Clothes, houses, customs, food a little, thoughts a little, knowledge, too—all change as the years and centuries go by, but Dalyaunce under a thousand names lives on. It never occurred to me when I was young to think that the children in Rome talked Latin at their games, and that Solomon and Caesar, Prester John and the Grand Khan knew in their youngdays what it means to be homesick and none too easy to sit down. Yet there are knucklebones and dolls in London that the infant subjects of the Pharaohs played with, and at Stratford Grammar School, for all to see, is Shakespeare's school desk. As for Dalyaunce, "dockings" are not nowadays so harsh as once they were.

In proof of this, there is a passage from a book, telling of his own life as a small boy, written by Guibert de Nogent. He is speaking of his childhood, about the year when William the Conqueror landed at Hastings:

'So, after a few of the evening hours had been passed in that study, during which I had been beaten even beyond my deserts, I came and sat at my mother's knees. She, according to her wont, asked whether I had been beaten that day; and I, unwilling to betray my master, denied it; whereupon, whether I would or no, she threw back my inner garment (such as men call shirt), and found my little ribs black with the strokes of the osier, and rising everywhere into weals. Then, grieving in her inmost bowels at this punishment so excessive for my tender years, troubled and boiling with anger, and with brimming eyes, she cried, "Never now shalt thou become a clerk, nor shalt thou be thus tortured again to learn thy letters!" Whereupon, gazing upon her with all the seriousness that I could call to my face, I replied, "Nay, even though I should die under the rod, I will not desist from learning my letters and becoming a clerk!"'

Still, there were more merciful schoolmasters than Guibert de Nogent's, even in days harsh as his; as this further extract from Mr. G. G. Coulton's enticingMedieval Garnershows:

'One day, when a certain Abbot, much reputed for his piety, spake with Anselm concerning divers points of Monastic Religion, and conversed among other things of the boys that were brought up in the cloister, he added: "What, pray, can we do with them? They are perverse and incorrigible; day and night we cease not to chastise them, yet they grow daily worse and worse."

Whereat Anselm marvelled, and said, "Ye cease not to beat them? And when they are grown to manhood, of what sort are they then?" "They are dull and brutish," said the other.

Then said Anselm, "With what good profit do ye expend your substance in nurturing human beings till they becomebrute beasts?... But I prithee tell me, for God's sake, wherefore ye are so set against them? Are they not human, sharing in the same nature as yourselves? Would ye wish to be so handled as ye handle them? Ye will say, 'Yes, if we were as they are.' So be it, then; yet is there no way but that of stripes and scourges for shaping them to good? Did ye ever see a goldsmith shape his gold or silver plate into a fair image by blows alone? I trow not. What then? That he may give the plate its proper shape, he will first press it gently and tap it with his tools; then again he will more softly raise it with discreet pressure from below, and caress it into shape. So ye also, if ye would see your boys adorned with fair manners, ye should not only beat them down with stripes, but also raise their spirits and support them with fatherly kindness and pity'...."

There was an old woodcut, hanging on Mr. Nahum's wall in his tower room, showing a boy in the middle ages being whipped in a kind of machine (something like a roasting-jack), and a schoolmaster standing by, nicely smiling, in a gown. When Coleridge was a bluecoat boy at Christ's Hospital with Charles Lamb, he seems to have had a headmaster of this kind: "'Boy!' I remember Bowyer saying to me once when I was crying the first day after my return after the holidays,—'Boy! the school is your father! Boy! the school is your mother! Boy! the school is your brother! the school is your sister! the school is your first cousin, and your second cousin, and all the rest of your relations! Let's have no more crying.' ...

"Mrs. Bowyer was no comforter, either. Val. Le Grice and I were once going to be flogged for some domestic misdeed, and Bowyer was thundering away at us, by way of prologue, when Mrs. B. looked in and said, 'Flog them soundly, sir, I beg!' This saved us. Bowyer was so nettled at the interruption that he growled out, 'Away, woman, away!' and we were let off."

Coleridge tells of yet another schoolmaster, whose name, like Bowyer and birch, also began with a B.: "Busby was the father of the English public school system. He was headmaster of Westminster through the reign of Charles I., the Civil War, the Protectorate, the reign of Charles II., and the Revolution of 1688. Under him Westminster became the first school in the kingdom. When Charles II. visited theschool, Busby stalked before the King with his hat upon his head, whilst his most sacred majesty meekly followed him. In private Busby explained that his conduct was due to the fact that he could not allow, for discipline's sake, the boys to imagine there could be a greater man than himself alive." Quite rightly, of course.

There is, too, the story of the little Lion that went to school to the Bear. Being, though of royal blood, a good deal of a dunce, Master Lion bore many sound cuffings from Dr. Bruin on the road to learning, and found it hot and dusty. After such administrations, he would sometimes sit in the sun under a window, learning his task and brooding on a day when he would return to the school and revenge himself upon the Doctor for having treated him so sore. But Master Lion was all this time growing up, and so many were the cares of State when he had left his books and become a Prince and Heir Apparent, that for a time he had no thought for his old school. Being, however, in the Royal Gardens one sunny morning, and seeing bees busy about their hive, he remembered an old saying on the sweetness of knowledge and wisdom, and this once more reminded him of his old Master. Bidding his servants sling upon a rod half a dozen of the hives, he set out to visit Dr. Bruin. The hives were taken into his study, and the bees, being unused to flitting within walls out of the sunshine, angrily sang and droned about the head of the old schoolmaster as he sat at his desk. Their stings were of little account against his thick hide, but their molestation was a fret, and he presently cried aloud, "Would that the Prince had kept his gifts to himself!" The Prince, who was standing outside the door, listening and smiling to himself, thereupon cried out: "Ah! Dr. Bruin, when I was under your charge, you often heavily smit and cuffed me with those long-clawed paws of yours. Now I am older, and have learned how sweet and worthy is the knowledge they instilled. This too will be your experience. My bees may fret and buzz and sting a little now, but you will think of me more kindly when you shall be tasting their rich honey in the Winter that is soon upon us." And Dr. Bruin, peering out at the Prince from amid the cloud of the bees, when he heard him thus call Tit for Tat, he couldn't help but laugh.

And last—to return to Coleridge once more, who, in the badold days, so far as food goes, never "had a belly full" at Christ's Hospital, and whose appetite was only "damped, never satisfied,"—here is one of his earliest letters (to his elder brother George), whichmayhave an (indirect) reference to Dr. Bowyer's birch:

Dear Brother,—You will excuse me for reminding you that, as our holidays commence next week, and I shall go out a good deal, a good pair of breeches will be no inconsiderable accession to my appearance. For though my present pair are excellent for the purpose of drawing mathematical figures on them, and though a walking thought, sonnet or epigram would appear in them in verysplendidtype, yet they are not altogether so well adapted for a female eye—not to mention that I should have the charge of vanity brought against me for wearing a looking-glass. I hope you have got rid of your cold—and I amYour affectionate brother,Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Your affectionate brother,

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

This too should go to the lilt of its music, as then the accents would come clearly. I think, in the reading of it, there should be four stressed syllables to the first, second and fifth lines in each stanza: " Whâr hae ye bêen a' day, mŷ boy Tâmmy"; and "The wêe thing gie's her hând, and says, There, gâng and ask my Mâmmy." A line of verse like this resembles a piece of elastic; if you leave it very slack you will get no music out of it at all; stretch it a little too far, it snaps.

This little jingle and Nos. 15, 16, 68, 75, etc., are Singing Game Rhymes, of which scores have been collected from the mouths of children near and far from all over the Kingdom, and are now to be found in print in Lady Gomme's two stout engrossing volumes entitledTraditional Games. In these more than seven hundred games are described, including Rakes and Roans, Rockety Row, Sally Go Round the Moon, Shuttlefeather, Spannims, Tods and Lambs, Whigmeleerie, Allicomgreenaie, Bob-Cherry, Oranges and Lemons, Cherry Pit, Thumble-bones, Lady on Yandor Hill, Hechefragy, and Snail Creep.

A good many of these games have singing rhymes to them. And the words of them vary in different places. For the children in each of twenty or more villages and towns may have their own particular version of the same rhyme. As for the original from which all such versions must once have come—thatmay be centuries old. Like the Nursery Rhymes, they were most of them in the world ages before our great-great-great-grand-dams were babies in their cradles. The noble game of Hop Scotch, for instance, Lady Gomme tells us, was in favour before the year I.

The most mysterious rhymes of all are said to refer to ancient tribal customs, rites and ceremonies—betrothals, harvest-homes, sowings, reapings, well-blessings, dirges, divinations, battles, hunting, and exorcisings—before even London was else than a few hovels by its river's side. Rhymes such as these having been passed on from age to age and from one piping throat to another, have grown worn and battered of course, and become queerly changed in their words.

These from Mr. Nahum's book have their own differences too. He seems to have liked best those that make a picture, or sound uncommonly sweet and so carry the fancy away. Any little fytte or jingle or jargon of words that managesthatis like a charm or a talisman, and to make new ones is as hard as to spin silk out of straw, or to turn beech leaves into fairy money. When one thinks, too, of the myriad young voices that generation after generation have carolled these rhymes into the evening air, and now are still—well, it's a thought no less sorrowful for being strange, and no less strange for the fact that our own voices too will some day be as silent.

Back to Index Next