Dragon Wench as your post: hope you will agree that profundity, poetry and prose in childhood is equally relevant. When I was very, very small and at primary school in Scotland we were first introduced to poetry that was thought to be appropriate to small children. So for me Hillaire Belloc's writing, does have that resonance that moment of stopping and thinking '
what'? This is something that I never experienced before. Poetry, hey I'm, only 5... As I would like to think that childhood experiences are equal to adult ones, I would also like to add Edgar Allan Poe's
The Bells, but only the first part of it, as it is v. long. The word
tintinnabulation has probably been my favourite word since I first heard it. I look out for it everywhere, but am usually disappointed... But for me, the awful Rebecca is a worthwhile study please read with care all small girls, as she was an especial warning to me at ages 5/6.
Rebecca
Hilaire Belloc
Who Slammed Doors For Fun And Perished Miserably
A trick that everyone abhors
In little girls is slamming doors.
A wealthy banker’s little daughter
Who lived in Palace Green, Bayswater
(By name Rebecca Offendort),
Was given to this furious sport.
She would deliberately go
And slam the door like billy-o!
To make her uncle Jacob start.
She was not really bad at heart,
But only rather rude and wild;
She was an aggravating child…
It happened that a marble bust
Of Abraham was standing just
Above the door this little lamb
Had carefully prepared to slam,
And down it came! It knocked her flat!
It laid her out! She looked like that.
Her funeral sermon (which was long
And followed by a sacred song)
Mentioned her virtues, it is true,
But dwelt upon her vices too,
And showed the deadful end of one
Who goes and slams the door for fun.
The children who were brought to hear
The awful tale from far and near
Were much impressed, and inly swore
They never more would slam the door,
— As often they had done before.
Online text © 1998-2007 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From Cautionary Tales for Children | 1920
@
Edgar Allan Poe
The Bells
With my favourite word that still make me stop and savour
tintinnabulation
Hear the sledges with the bells-
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells-
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.