Baby poems
 

On account of the happy announcement by Peter Chipman down here on General Talk, I'm starting a thread for baby poems.

To start us, here's a link to A.E. Stallings's "Lullaby for a Colicky Baby."

And if there's an older thread on this subject I didn't find, do please point me to it.

I'm glad you started this, Maryann. Since I read your 'Circadian Lament, Sung to a Wakeful Baby' -- which I won't include here, only because it seem to be a work in progress -- I'd been thinking about how few baby poems have actually stayed with me, as that one has. I hope my fellow Eratospherians can remedy that.

I do like Auden's 'Munds et Infans,' but it's not the sort of thing you can rattle off (no pun intended) -- well, at least I can't.

Thanks for the poem by A.E. Stallings.

Best,

Ed

How young does a child have to be to be a baby? Are they babies until they are one? In which case I have written baby poems myself. When they just lie about - or in the case of our daughter, lie about and scream the place down, they are not very conducive to the Muse. But if they can DO stuff....

Maryann, you workshopped a poem a while ago - not this current one - do you remember which one I'm thinking of?

Here's a throwaway that I didn't throw away, but this is D&A so here goes:

STRAINING CREDULITY

Your three-month-old knows how to walk?
I'll take you at your word.
What's that? The little guy can talk?
I won't say that's absurd.

After all, his father's you
and you're the perfect sire.
What's that? He sleeps the whole night through?
That does it. You're a liar!

Roger, I love it.

Mary, I think you might mean "Security." That makes me think a bit: many "baby" poems are more properly "mother" poems.

I'm trying to hunt down specimens I think I remember by Geoff Brock, Anne Stevenson, and, of all people, Sylvia Plath.

John, by all means let's see the poem.

The children other folk beget
Are dreadful little bores.
I think that I have never yet
Seen any worse than yours.
But take a look at our sweet Miss:
She's one of Nature's flowers.
So leave your baby out of this
And concentrate on ours.

--Anon

Too true, David.

Here's the Brock poem--found nearby! It's "Lauds." Scroll way down past the photos.

I'm partial to the mer-creature in this other poem by Alicia:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/arch...html?id=181166

(And he didn't get a brother. He got a sister!)

Julie, thanks for reminding me of that one. And that one reminds me of another kid-in-the-bed poem. The kid is older than a baby, but the love is the same.

Galway Kinnell's "After Making Love We Hear Footsteps"

I've always liked Plath's "You're."

Beautiful baby contests in magazines often have snaps of children up to about four - proper little Shirley Temples some of them - which I find weird. Anyway this is a poem about an older child at nursery school.


BOTTLED SCHOONER

They pull the masts up with a string,
so simple when you know a thing,
but I was last in Mrs Watkin’s class
to see the ship had not sailed through the glass.

So simple when you know a thing,
enchantment melts like snow in spring;
I see the schooner as it has to be:
a wooden model on a velvet sea.

I wrote about a dozen of these, most of them in the middle of the night while wheeling her pram through the nearby streets to keep her asleep. She didn't do a lot of that as I remember, except when she was dumped at the University creche when she snoozed all bloody day at our expense.
It is also proof positive that I was still smoking in those days. Hardly surprising.


The Things

Some of the things our daughter’s got:
She’s got a ball. You throw the ball.
She throws it back. Or sometimes not.
Most babies scarcely throw at all.

She’s got an orange knitted cat
Which is, perhaps, a kangaroo.
Opinions differ as to that.
One must suppose the knitter knew.

A matchbox, an engraved brass bell,
A dish, a spoon, a plastic cup,
A tower she can knock to hell
(I’d like to see her build it up).

A woolly bobble and a puck-
ered tube that held a fat cigar,
A big duck and a little duck,
Three rattles and a Hong Kong car.

What life in lists inheres – the names
Of wild flowers, railway stations, Kings
And Queens of England, children’s games,
Dead poets. And our daughter’s things.

That's lovely, John.

Here's one of mine:

On a Photograph of a Young Child

Shining eyes and golden hair,
little soldier standing there—
may the future take you where
stars will always shine at night,
days will all be golden-bright.
May the touch of care be light.

Baby Poems
 

Can't remember who wrote it--possibly A. Bierce, but I have been unable to forget one stanza of this one from way back:


Last night our baby died--
It died comitting suicide.
'Twas a nasty baby anyhow
And cost us forty dollars.


Anybody recall who wrote it? Is there more?


W.

Beautiful, David. It sounds like something Latin, which is good in my book. Martial's verse (or verses) on the death of Erotion spring to mind.

I published this in Light a few years ago:

Parenthood

I love my kids, don't get me wrong,
but wonder, when they fuss and fight,
if species who consume their young
might have it right.

Lullaby
 

I wrote this for my grand-babies, I wanted them to have a lullaby without any mention of harm or dark or bad dreams. No 'tomorrow, if God grants it, you will wake up again' and no falling off breaking branches.

LULLABY

Now little children everywhere
Must go to bed like you dear
On farms, in village and in town
Little children snuggle down
All tucked in and kissed good night
As the evening loses light
In the morning you can play
You will have a whole new day

Sleepy time is nearly here
Off to bed my little dear
Little birds are sleeping too
Tired out and snug like you
Sleep and dream my little dear
Mom and dad will be right here
In the morning you can play
You will have a whole new day

(the repetition is not neglect, it is to make sleepy and reassure.)

A favorite of my mine:

Dahn the Plug'ole


A muvver was barfin’ ‘er biby one night,
The youngest of ten and a tiny young mite,
The muvver was pore and the biby was thin,
Only a skelington covered in skin;
The muvver turned rahnd for the soap off the rack,
She was but a moment, but when she turned back,
The biby was gorn; and in anguish she cried,
’Oh, where is my biby?’ - The Angels replied:
’Your biby ‘as fell dahn the plug’ole,
Your biby ‘as gorn dahn the plug;
The poor little thing was so skinny and thin,
'E oughter been barfed in a jug;
Your biby is perfectly ‘appy,
'E won’t need a barf any more,
Your biby ‘as fell dahn the plug’ole,
Not lost, but gorn before!’
.

Petra,

Where ever is that from?
It is priceless. We had a family dinner tonight, and one of the seven year old grandsons read it out loud to great effect. It is marvelous...... poor little skellington biby.

On the subject of babies and plugholes, John Whitworth has this one:

Bathwater Chorus

I know a rule that any fool
Should treat as more than maybe.
When you throw out the bathwater
You don't throw out the baby.

So listen up, my buttercup,
Pin back those hairy lugholes --
This rule of thumb, my sugarplumb:
Keep infants out of plugholes!
They gurgle and they gargle so
As out the liquid swishes.
Then horrorshow! Away they go
And mingle with the fishes!
So here's a song that can't be wrong
However bad the day be.
When you throw out the bathwater
You don't throw out the baby.

Or - down the pipe and down the drain
And down the Swanee River,
With joyous squawks they bob like corks
Across the sea forever.
Alas, alack, they won't come back,
Those dainty little putti.
They're all the same, the only game
They know's cosi fan tutti.
This little verse is true and terse
And clear as any gaby.
When you throw out the bathwater,
When you throw out the bathwater,
You're up the spout without a doubt
If you throw out -- so don't throw out,
NO, DON'T THROW OUT THE BABY!

The plughole song (not mine - thank you Orwn) has a tune. I think it was sung on the Music Halls (that's vaudeville to you yanks). The last liner should read:

'Not LORST, but gorn before!' or possibly 'Not LAWST but gawn before!'

Cocknet 'skellington' whymes with wellington. Something ought to be done with that. A translation of Rimbaud into cockney perhaps? Les squelletes de Saladin = Saladin's skellingtons

Glad you and your grandson liked the poem, Birthe!
I should have said before that "Dahn the Plug'ole" was written by that most profilic of poets, Anonymous. I have the cockney version in my "Rattle Bag", which is an anthology edited by Heaney and Hughes. And John, you're quite right -- it's should be "lorst", at least that's what "The Rattle Bag" has.