Little Imps of Gloryland with great big eyes
Follow me with questionings and laughter and surprise;
Little cheeky pixie boys whom nothing can suppress,
Whose pandects, codes and institutes are bound in mother's "Yes."
When Uncle comes in Sunday clothes they clamour to be kissed,
Black-currants sticking to each face and pancakes in each fist.
Four fists that is, all over jam, and four black sticky lips
Just come from playing motor-chairs and sailing sofa-ships.
And if you wander on the lawn untended in the dark
With tricycles and wheelbarrows your shins will lose some bark!
WHISPER!
Someone smashed the photo-lady;
Who upset the pot of musk?
Was it Micky? Was it Padie
Hunting Micky in the dusk?
For what's your talk of tidiness and putting things "right there"
To little Boyo Browneyes and Billy Wirehair?
I'm picking up the channel or I'm trucking up the slope,
I'm hauling on the shear-head with a length of yellow rope;
No matter where I'm wandering, in dreaming or in fact,
Wool-loaded down the blacksoil plains or past the desert tract,
About the city clamorous with many brakes and bells,
It takes no sweep of wizard wand nor moonlit fairy spells
To bring me back to kitchen land, and whom do I see there
But little Boyo Browneyes and Billy Wirehair!
PEEP SONG
Oh, Friday night's the laundry night,
Down the street in the dark—
And Saturday night's the picture night,
When bands play in the park.
But Sunday morning is the time
We do the pillow-peep,
To see what things the fairies brought
While two boys were asleep.