I don’t have the Romantic poets’ penchant for equating poets with saints nor the sentimentality that elevates mothers to sainthood, but I do remember the poetry my mother read to me and quoted to me with some fondness and notalgia. I looked for a while (pre-internet) to find the anthology that my mother read from, My Poetry Book: An Anthology of Modern Verse for Boys and Girls.
This book, published in 1956, was the one from which my mother read poetry to me and my sister. Since it’s out of print, I was happy to be able find a used copy several years ago with the advent of online internet booksellers. It has some of my favorite childhood memory poems, including Mumps by Elizabeth Maddox Roberts, I Meant To Do My Work Today by Richard LeGallienne, Seein’ Things by Eugene Field, A Vagabond Song by Bliss Carman, Leetla Giorgio Washeenton by Thomas Augustine Daly, The Pobble Who Has No Toes by Edward Lear, and this one:
Lullaby by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Bedtime’s come fu’ little boys,
Po’ little lamb.
Too tiahed out to make a noise,
Po’ little lamb.
You gwine t’ have tomorrer sho’?
Yes, you tole me dat befo’,
Don’t you fool me, chile, no mo’,
Po’ little lamb.
You been bad the livelong day,
Po’ little lamb.
Th’owin’ stones an’ runnin’ ‘way,
Po’ little lamb.
My but you’s a runnin’ wil’,
Look jes’ lak some po’ folks’ chile;
Mam’ gwine whup you atter while,
Po’ little lamb.
Come hyeah! you mos’ tiahed to def,
Po’ little lamb.
Played yo’se’f clean out o’ bref,
Po’ little lamb.
See dem han’s now–sich a sight!
Would you evah b’lieve dey’s white?
Stan’ still twell I wash ’em right,
Po’ little lamb.
Jes’ cain’t hol’ yo’ haid up straight,
Po’ little lamb.
Hadn’t oughter played so late,
Po’l ittle lamb.
Mammy do’know whut she’d do,
If de chillun’s all lak you;
You’s a caution now fu’ true,
Po’ little lamb.
Lay yo’ haid down in my lap,
Po ‘little lamb.
Y’ought to have a right good slap,
Po’ little lamb.
You been runnin’ roun’ a heap.
Shet dem eyes an’don’t you peep,
Dah now, dah now, go to sleep,
Po’ little lamb.
I loved to try to read this poem out loud when I was a child. Dunbar was criticized for his dialect poems; people said he was perpetuating negative stereotypes about black people and the way they spoke and also about the way they lived under slavery. I just liked (and still do) the way the lullaby rolled off my tongue and sounded so comforting.