DEDICATION
To all good children over four
And under four-and-eighty
Be you not over-prone to pore
On matters grave and weighty.
Mayhap you'll find within this book
Some touch of Youth's rare clowning,
If you will condescend to look
And not descend to frowning.
The mind of one small boy may hold
Odd fancies and inviting,
To guide a hand unsure and old
That moves, these days, to writing.
For hair once bright, in days of yore,
Grows grey (or somewhat slaty),
And now, alas, he's over four,
Though under four-and-eighty.
CONTENTS
[Dedication]
[A Very Charming Gentleman]
[The Baker]
[The Dawn Dance]
[Cuppacumalonga]
[The Swagman]
[The Ant Explorer]
[Riding Song]
[The Funny Hatter]
[The Postman]
[The Traveller]
[Our Street]
[The Little Red House]
[The Pieman]
[The Triantiwontigongolope]
[The Circus]
[You and I]
[Going to School]
[Hist!]
[Bird Song]
[The Music of Your Voice]
[The Boy who Rode into the Sunset]
[The Tram-man]
[The Axe-man]
[The Drovers]
[The Long Road Home]
[The Band]
[Bessie and the Bunyip]
[Good Enough]
[The Porter]
[Growing Up]
[The Unsociable Wallaby]
[I wonder]
[The Song of the Sulky Stockman]
[Our Cow]
[The Teacher]
[The Spotted Heifers]
[Tea Talk]
[The Looking Glass]
[Woolloomooloo]
[I wonder]
[The Barber]
[Farmer Jack]
[Old Black Jacko]
[Bird Song]
[The Sailor]
[The Famine]
[The Feast]
[Upon the Road to Rockabout]
[A Change of Air]
[Polly Dibbs]
[I Suspect]
[Lullaby]
[I wonder]
[The Publisher]
[Good Night]
[A Very Charming Gentleman]
A BOOK FOR KIDS
THE BAKER
I'd like to be a baker, and come when morning breaks,
Calling out, "Beeay-ko!" (that's the sound he makes)--
Riding in a rattle-cart that jogs and jolts and shakes,
Selling all the sweetest things a baker ever bakes;
Currant-buns and brandy-snaps, pastry all in flakes;
But I wouldn't be a baker if . . .
I couldn't eat the cakes.
Would you?
THE DAWN DANCE
What do you think I saw to-day when I arose at dawn?
Blue Wrens and Yellow-tails dancing on the lawn!
Bobbing here, and bowing there, gossiping away,
And how I wished that you were there to see the merry play!
But you were snug abed, my boy, blankets to your chin,
Nor dreamed of dancing birds without or sunbeams dancing in.
Grey Thrush, he piped the tune for them. I peeped out through the glass
Between the window curtains, and I saw them on the grass--
Merry little fairy folk, dancing up and down,
Blue bonnet, yellow skirt, cloaks of grey and brown,
Underneath the wattle-tree, silver in the dawn,
Blue Wrens and Yellow-tails dancing on the lawn.