What makes this poem special for me isn't just the deft execution, but the whole concept of the poem. Just about everyone can identify with the experience of lying in bed (particularly as a child) and listening to the house makes noises, and yet few of us if any have given it much thought or isolated the experience as one to be described and relived in a poem. This is a children's poem in the sophisticated sense of not just being fun and lively to read, but in recognizing and isolating a distinct experience of childhood.
I would think, as well, that the poem might be useful and comforting for many children. I think for many children, the sounds that the house makes can be frightening. They may sound like intruders, animals, ghosts, or something else not quite right with the world. By turning them into an orchestra, the poem may well do what Richard Wilbur says in his poem, "A Barred Owl":
Words, which can make our terrors bravely clear,
Can also thus domesticate a fear,
And send a small child back to sleep at night
Of course, in this poem the child is kept awake, but all the same . . .
I see that people are quite satisfied with the ending of the poem the way it is, as am I, but part of me wishes that the house sounds put the kid asleep at the end instead of waking him. Perhaps there could be an alternative ending for parents wishing to use this as a bedtime rhyme?
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