Mother Goose for Grown Folks

BANBURY CROSS

 
"Ride a fine horse
To Banbury Cross,
To see a young woman
Jump on a white horse.
Rings on her fingers,
And bells on her toes,
And she shall have music
Wherever she goes."
 
 
Prophetic Dame! What hadst thou in
view?
A modern wedding in Fifth Avenue?
Where,—like the goddess of a heathen
shrine,
With offerings heaped in such a glittering
show
As must have emptied a Peruvian mine,
And would suggest, but that we better
know,
Marriage must be a bitter thing indeed,
And, like the Prophet of the Eastern tale,
Must wear a very ugly face, to need
Such careful shrouding in the silver
veil,—
Her bridal pomp, as a white palfrey, mount-
ing,
Caparisoned at cost beyond all counting,
With diamond-jewelled fingers, and the
toes
Ditto, for all that anybody knows,
The smiling damsel goeth to the Banns?
(Why add the "bury," or suggest the
"cross,"
As if such brilliant ringing of the hands
Preluded aught of trial or of loss?)
 
 
Shall not Life's golden bells still tinkle
sweet,
And merry music make about her feet?
Shall not the silver sheen around her spread,
A lasting light along her pathway shed?
No mocking satire, surely, hides a sting,
Nor bitter irony a truth foreshows,
In the gay chant the cheery dame doth
sing,—
"She shall have music wheresoe'er she
goes"?
 
 
She shall have music! Shall she sit apart,
And let the folly-chimes outvoice the
tone
That comes up wailing to the listening
heart,
From the great world, where misery
maketh moan?
Ah, Mother Goose! if such the tale it tells,
Sing us no more your rhyme of rings and
bells!
 
 
But may not—'twere a rare device in-
deed!—
The wondrous oracle in both ways read?
And call up, as a fair beatitude,
The gracious vision of true womanhood,
That with pure purpose, and a gentle might,
Upheld and borne, as by the steed of white,
Pledged with her golden ring, goes nobly
forth
To trace her path of joy along the earth,—
And, as she moves, makes music, silver-shod
"With preparation of the peace" of God,
That holds the key-note of celestial cheer,
And hangs heaven's echoes round her foot-
steps here?
 

ATTIC SALT

 
"Two little blackbirds sat upon a hill,
One named Jack, the other named Jill
Fly away, Jack! fly away, Jill!
Come again, Jack! come again, Jill!"
 
 
I half suspect that, after all,
There's just the smallest bit
Of inequality between
The witling and the wit.
'Tis only mental nimbleness:
No language ever brought
A living word to soul of man
But had the latent thought.
 
 
You may meet, among the million,
Good people every day,—
Unconscious martyrs to their fate,—
Who seem, in half they say,
On the brink of something brilliant
They were almost sure to clinch,
Yet, by some queer freak of fortune,
Just escape it by an inch!
 
 
I often think the selfsame shade,—
This difference of a hair,—
Divides between the men of nought
And those who do and dare.
An instant cometh on the wing,
Bearing a kingly crown:
This man is dazzled and lets it by—
That seizes and brings it down.
 
 
Winged things may stoop to any door
Alighting close and low;
And up and down, 'twixt earth and sky,
Do always come and go.
Swift, fluttering glimpses touch us all,
Yet, prithee, what avails?
'Tis only Genius that can put
The salt upon their tails!
 

THE BIG SHOE

 
"There was an old woman
Who lived in a shoe;
She had so many children
She did n't know what to do:
To some she gave broth,
And to some she gave bread,
And some she whipped soundly,
And sent them to bed."
 
 
Do you find out the likeness?
A portly old Dame,—
The mother of millions,—
Britannia by name:
And—howe'er it may strike you
In reading the song—
Not stinted in space
For bestowing the throng;
Since the Sun can himself
Hardly manage to go,
In a day and a night,
From the heel to the toe.
 
 
On the arch of the instep
She builds up her throne,
And, with seas rolling under,
She sits there alone;
With her heel at the foot
Of the Himmalehs planted,
And her toe in the icebergs,
Unchilled and undaunted.
 
 
Yet though justly of all
Her fine family proud,
'Tis no light undertaking
To rule such a crowd;
Not to mention the trouble
Of seeing them fed,
And dispensing with justice
The broth and the bread.
Some will seize upon one,—
Some are left with the other,
And so the whole household
Gets into a pother.
But the rigid old Dame
Has a summary way
Of her own, when she finds
There is mischief to pay.
She just takes up the rod,
As she lays down the spoon,
And makes their rebellious backs
Tingle right soon:
Then she bids them, while yet
The sore smarting they feel,
To lie down, and go to sleep,
Under her heel!
 
 
Only once was she posed,—
When the little boy Sam,
Who had always before
Been as meek as a lamb,
Refused to take tea,
As his mother had bid,
And returned saucy answers
Because he was chid.
 
 
Not content even then,
He cut loose from the throne,
And set about making
A shoe of his own;
Which succeeded so well,
And was filled up so fast,
That the world, in amazement,
Confessed, at the last,—
Looking on at the work
With a gasp and a stare,—
That't was hard to tell which
Would be best of the pair.
 
 
Side by side they are standing
Together to-day;
Side by side may they keep
Their strong foothold for aye:
And beneath the broad sea,
Whose blue depths intervene,
May the finishing string
Lie unbroken between!
 

VICTUALS AND DRINK

 
"There once was a woman,
And what do you think?
She lived upon nothing
But victuals and drink.
Victuals and drink
"Were the chief of her diet,
And yet this poor woman
Scarce ever was quiet."
 
 
And were you so foolish
As really to think
That all she could want
Was her victuals and drink?
 
 
And that while she was furnished
With that sort of diet,
Her feeling and fancy
Would starve, and be quiet?
 
 
Mother Goose knew far better;
But thought it sufficient
To give a mere hint
That the fare was deficient;
For I do not believe
She could ever have meant
To imply there was reason
For being content.
 
 
Yet the mass of mankind
Is uncommonly slow
To acknowledge the fact
It behooves them to know;
Or to learn that a woman
Is not like a mouse,
Needing nothing but cheese,
And the walls of a house.
 
 
But just take a man,—
Shut him up for a day;
Get his hat and his cane,—
Put them snugly away;
Give him stockings to mend,
And three sumptuous meals;—
And then ask him, at night,
If you dare, how he feels!
Do you think he will quietly
Stick to the stocking,
While you read the news,
And "don't care about talking?"
O, many a woman
Goes starving, I ween,
Who lives in a palace,
And fares like a queen;
Till the famishing heart,
And the feverish brain,
Have spelled to life's end
The long lesson of pain.
 
 
Yet, stay! To my mind
An uneasy suggestion
Comes up, that there may be
Two sides to the question.
That, while here and there proving
Inflicted privation,
The verdict must often be
"Wilful starvation."
 
 
Since there are men and women
Would force one to think
They choose to live only
On victuals and drink.
 
 
O restless, and craving,
Unsatisfied hearts,
Whence never the vulture
Of hunger departs!
How long on the husks
Of your life will ye feed,
Ignoring the soul,
And her famishing need?
 
 
Bethink you, when lulled
In your shallow content,
'Twas to Lazarus only
The angels were sent;
And 't is he to whose lips
But earth's ashes are given,
For whom the full banquet
Is gathered in heaven!
"There was an old woman
Tossed up in a blanket,
Seventeen times as high as the moon;
What she did there
I cannot tell you,
But in her hand she carried a broom.
Old woman, old woman,
Old woman, said I,
O whither, O whither, O whither so high?
To sweep the cobwebs
Off the sky,
And I 'll be back again, by and by."
 
 
Mind you, she wore no wings,
That she might truly soar; no time was lost
In growing such unnecessary things;
But blindly, in a blanket, she was tost!
 
 
Spasmodically, too!
'T was not enough that she should reach
the moon;
But seventeen times the distance she must
do,
Lest, peradventure, she get back too
soon.
 
 
That emblematic broom!
Besom of mad Reform, uplifted high,
That, to reach cobwebs, would precipitate
doom,
And sweep down thunderbolts from out
the sky!
 
 
Doubtless, no rubbish lay
About her door,—no work was there to
do,—
That through the astonished aisles of Night
and Day,
She took her valorous flight in quest of
new!
 
 
Lo! at her little broom
The great stars laugh, as on their wheels
of fire
They go, dispersing the eternal gloom,
And shake Time's dust from off each
blazing tire!
 
 
"Little Miss Muffet
Sat on a tuffet,
Eating curds and whey:
There came a black spider,
And sat down beside her,
And frightened Miss Muffet away,"
 
 
To all mortal blisses,
From comfits to kisses,
There's sure to be something by way of
alloy;
Each new expectation
Brings fresh aggravation,
And a doubtful amalgam's the best of our
You may sit on your tuffet;
Yes,—cushion and stuff it;
And provide what you please, if you don't
fancy whey;
But before you can eat it,
There 'll be—I repeat it—
Some sort of black spider to come in the
way.
 

DAFFY-DOWN-DILLY

 
"Daffy-down-dilly
Is new come to town,
With a petticoat green,
And a bright yellow gown,
And her little white blossoms
Are peeping around."
 
 
Now don't you call this
A most exquisite thing?
Don't it give you a thrill
With the thought of the spring,
Such as once, in your childhood,
You felt, when you found
The first yellow buttercups
Spangling the ground?
 
 
When the lilac was fresh
With its glory of leaves,
And the swallows came fluttering
Under the eaves?
When the bluebird flashed by
Like a magical thing,
And you looked for a fairy
Astride of his wing?
 
 
When the clear, running water,
Like tinkling of bells,
Bore along the bare roadside
A song of the dells,—
And the mornings were fresh
With unfailing delight,
While the sweet summer hush
Always came with the night?
 
 
O' daffy-down-dilly,
With robings of gold Î
As our hearts every year
To your coming unfold,
And sweet memories stir
Through the hardening mould,
We feel how earth's blossomings
Surely are given
To keep the soul fresh
For the spring-time of heaven!
 

BAA, BAA, BLACK SHEEP!

 
"Baa, baa, black sheep!
Have you any wool?
Yes, sir,—no, sir,—
Three bags full.
One for my master,
One for my dame,
And one for the little boy
That lives in the lane."
 
 
T is the same question as of old;
And still the doubter saith,
"Can any good be made to come
From out of Nazareth?"
 
 
No sheep so black in all the flock,—
No human heart so bare,—
But hath some warm and generous stock
Of kindliness to share.
 
 
It may be treasured secretly
For dear ones at the hearth;
Or be bestowed by stealth along
The by-ways of the earth;—
 
 
And though no searching eye may see,
Nor busy tongue may tell,
Perchance, where largest love is laid,
The Master knoweth well!
 

THE TWISTER

 
A twister, in twisting, would twist him a twist,
And, twisting his twists, seven twists he doth twist:
If one twist, in twisting, untwist from the twist,
The twist, untwisting, untwists the twist."
 
 
A ravelled rainbow overhead
Lets down to life its varying thread:
Love's blue,—Joy's gold,—and, fair be-
tween,
Hope's shifting light of emerald green;
With, either side, in deep relief,
A crimson Pain,—a violet Grief.
 
 
Wouldst thou, amid their gleaming hues,
Clutch after those, and these refuse?
Believe,—as thy beseeching eyes
Follow their lines, and sound the skies,—
There, where the fadeless glories shine,
An unseen angel twists the twine.
 
 
And be thou sure, what tint so e'er
The broken rays beneath may wear,
It needs them all, that, broad and white,
God's love may weave the perfect light!