Country Sentiment

TO E.M.—A BALLAD OF NURSERY RHYME.

     Strawberries that in gardens grow
       Are plump and juicy fine,
     But sweeter far as wise men know
       Spring from the woodland vine.

     No need for bowl or silver spoon,
       Sugar or spice or cream,
     Has the wild berry plucked in June
       Beside the trickling stream.

     One such to melt at the tongue's root,
       Confounding taste with scent,
     Beats a full peck of garden fruit:
       Which points my argument.

     May sudden justice overtake
       And snap the froward pen,
     That old and palsied poets shake
       Against the minds of men.

     Blasphemers trusting to hold caught
       In far-flung webs of ink,
     The utmost ends of human thought
       Till nothing's left to think.

     But may the gift of heavenly peace
       And glory for all time
     Keep the boy Tom who tending geese
       First made the nursery rhyme.

     By the brookside one August day,
       Using the sun for clock,
     Tom whiled the languid hours away
       Beside his scattering flock.

     Carving with a sharp pointed stone
       On a broad slab of slate
     The famous lives of Jumping Joan,
       Dan Fox and Greedy Kate.

     Rhyming of wolves and bears and birds,
       Spain, Scotland, Babylon,
     That sister Kate might learn the words
       To tell to toddling John.

     But Kate who could not stay content
       To learn her lesson pat
     New beauty to the rough lines lent
       By changing this or that.

     And she herself set fresh things down
       In corners of her slate,
     Of lambs and lanes and London town.
       God's blessing fall on Kate!

     The baby loved the simple sound,
       With jolly glee he shook,
     And soon the lines grew smooth and round
       Like pebbles in Tom's brook.

     From mouth to mouth told and retold
       By children sprawled at ease,
     Before the fire in winter's cold,
       in June, beneath tall trees.

     Till though long lost are stone and slate,
       Though the brook no more runs,
     And dead long time are Tom, John, Kate,
       Their sons and their sons' sons.

     Yet as when Time with stealthy tread
       Lays the rich garden waste
     The woodland berry ripe and red
       Fails not in scent or taste,

     So these same rhymes shall still be told
       To children yet unborn,
     While false philosophy growing old
       Fades and is killed by scorn.