The Bay and Padie Book | Page 3

starey moons,?Often we've heard Micky playing?By the window, fairy tunes;?But I don't know what he's saying?In the after afternoons.
Anyone seen Micky, say,?On the Coota-wattle perching??He might know and run away?If he knows we're searching, searching.
When he talks to Bay and me,?Micky doesn't seem to know?It's too far for boys to see?If he's in the trellis tree;?It's too damp for boys to go?Hunting in the grass below.
On the rafters in the night?I've heard little footmarks trot;?And I watch the candle light,?Wondering if it's him or not.
Micky's always everywhere;?Watches children while they sleeping;?'Round about the attic stair?Sometimes mother saw him peeping.
Micky doesn't like much noise,?He's a wide-eye whisper fairy;?Very kind to girls and boys,?Very shy and most contrary.
Tip-toe, tip-toe! Hush the noise!?There's a wide-eye whisper tune!?Micky's telling songs to boys?Sleepy after the afternoon.
THE LADY NANCY
What's the gooder being good??Always every day?Somefing comes and compradicks?Everyfing I play.
I was digging in the garden?And I digged me toe,?Why do I do that for??I don't know!
Then I goes and chases Sufi,?Sufi won't be chased:?I falled over the wheelbarrow?And hurted all me waist.
I tooks me little pictures out?And laid them in a row,?I told the wind to stop away?And not come round and blow.
Up there comes a norful wind?And brushed the lot away:?Daddie, Gord's been 'noying me?All this day.
THE HANGING SWORD
I used to stride like a warrior?All hot for alarms, and game--?But I'm not the fellow I was before?The little babies came.
Now, furtive 'mid the city's noise,?I pause, I start, I flee!?For what would happen to my little boys?If a tram ran over me?
NONSENSE IMMORTAL
From France or Spain or the Himalayas,?Out of the hearts of unknown loons,?In toothless mouths of old soothsayers,?On hairy lips of wandering players?Come the lullabies, come the croons.
Lords have lashed and poets have pondered,?Blood has flowed in the runnels deep,?Beacons have broken and faiths been squandered;?Through dank forests these songs have wandered?Quietly crooning our babes to sleep.
Grandmother melodies, grandmother fancies,?Crooned by the Oxus ever endure!?Epics of valour and throne romances?Have much honour and take big chances,?But the clowns who sang for the babes are sure.
The goblin speaks while in old caves moulder?Priest-made destinies and lord-made law,?The goblin leered from the monarch's shoulder?And, his sight being true and his young heart bolder,?'Twas only the goblin the baby saw!
So the god's death agonies are baby chatter!?A ball on the floor of the nursery room?The red earth rolls, for what can matter?If old John Spratt licks clean his platter?And the brown cows go to the broom?
THE ROAD OF NOW AND THEN
Tinkle, tinkle go the bells,?King and prince and silver knight?March through stories grandma tells?When the winter fire's alight.
Down the Road of Stories ride?People who have never died;?Fairies float and trumpets blow,?Pretty soldiers fence and bow,?On the Road from Long Ago,?Long Ago till Now.
Johnnie Fawkner sailed a boat,?There's its picture in the book;?Roses, wreaths and banners float?'Round the head of Captain Cook.
In the time when knights were bold?Ladies rode with bells and chains,?Horses rugged in white and gold,?Feather-legged with plaited manes.
Singing, Watch Europa go,?Wearing thinner clothes than silk.?Riding from the cattle show?On her bull as white as milk.
Sturt he led a caravan,?Kelly made the bankers jump;?Leichardt was a camel-man?Riding on a camel-hump.
Down the Road of Stories march?Gentle-folk and bullock-men,?Cracking whips and wearing starch
Down the Road of Stories go?All the people that we know.?Oh! what wonders grandmas show,?Spectacles on brow,?'Bout the Road from Long Ago,?Long Ago, Long Ago,?'Bout the Road from Long Ago,?Long Ago till Now.
SLEEP SONG
Half-past bunny-time,?'Possums by the moon;?Tea and bread-and-honey time,?Sleep-time soon.
Things that poets pant to see,?The beautiful, the true,?Are nothing to the phantasy?The closed eyes view.
KITCHEN LULLABY
Steady in the kitchen, steady in the hall,?Don't let the dipper or the gruel pot fall!?The ole blind's flapping?And the little dog's snapping?At the butcher and the baker and the woodman when they call.
Ssh! ssh! ssh! for the little boy peeping,?Ssh! ssh! ssh! did the milky make him start??Little boy sleeping, sleeping, sleeping,?Little boy sleeping at his mother's heart.
What a lot of noises, carts and buzzing flies!?Keep his little hands down, shut his little eyes;
For the boys are larking?And the dogs are barking?And he can't go to bye-low though he tries and tries.
Ssh! ssh! ssh! for the little boy blinking,?Blinking at the fairies who are wanting him to go;?Little boy thinking, thinking, thinking,?Little boy thinking if he will or no.
Rubs his little eye for to push the sleep away;?Better on the lawn is it? Watching spriggies play?
Minahs and starlings,?But no such darlings?As the little boy that's never been to sleep this day.
Ssh! ssh! ssh! for the big eyes gleaming,?Dee, dee, softly his mother sings;?Little boy dreaming, dreaming, dreaming,?Fluttering to bye-low on bull-fly wings.
BARTER
Kiddies must have little shoes?Softly buckled round their toes,?Rompers wrought in butcher blues,?That's the way the money goes.
In the Summer silky cool?Fabrics foaming in the breeze;?In the Winter muffling wool--?We must buy our kiddies these.
Woolly gaiters,