SONGS OF CHILDHOOD:  1901

To Jill—­
  sleepyhead
  bluebells
  lovelocks
  Tartary
  the buckle
  the hare
  bunches of grapes
  John mouldy
  the fly
  song
  I saw three witches
  the silver penny
  the Rainbow
  the fairies dancing
   reverie
  the three beggars
  the dwarf
  Alulvan
  the pedlar
  the ogre
  Dame Hickory
  the Pilgrim
  the Gage
  as Lucy went A-walking
  the Englishman
  the phantom
  the Miller and his son
  down-adown-derry
  the supper
  the isle of lone
  sleeping beauty
  the horn
  Captain lean
  the portrait of A warrior
  haunted
  the RAVEN’S tomb
  the christening
  the funeral
  the mother bird
  the child in the Story goes to bed
  the lamplighter
  I met at eve
  lullaby
  envoi

[Transcriber’s Note:  Because the remainder of this volume is available elsewhere in the PG archive, it is not included here.]

* * * * *

SONGS OF CHILDHOOD:  1901

TO JILL

* * * * *

SLEEPYHEAD

As I lay awake in the white moonlight,
I heard a faint singing in the wood,
      “Out of bed,
      Sleepyhead,
    Put your white foot, now;
      Here are we
      Beneath the tree
    Singing round the root now.”

I looked out of window, in the white moonlight,
The leaves were like snow in the wood—­
      “Come away,
      Child, and play
    Light with the gnomies;
      In a mound,
      Green and round,
    That’s where their home is.”

      “Honey sweet,
      Curds to eat,
    Cream and frumenty,
      Shells and beads,
      Poppy seeds,
    You shall have plenty.”

But, as soon as I stooped in the dim moonlight
  To put on my stocking and my shoe,
The sweet shrill singing echoed faintly away,
  And the grey of the morning peeped through,
And instead of the gnomies there came a red robin
  To sing of the buttercups and dew.