HvS | Eleven Poems

Feeding the birds. Hilda van Stockum, 1934.
Courtesy of the Estate of the Author.

Let me know which poems you like best and I will post them in order of popularity.

1. The Bird

My teacher had a cage with a wild thrush

He had caught it when swinging on a bush 

And he smiled when he showed it off to me

But I only begged him to let the thrush free.

For why did God give birds their wings

And a sky full of blue deep air

If they were to sit upon a stick

And hang in a cage above a chair?

If they can't even stretch their quills

And take one deep long breath,

But have to nod upon their stick

And die a creeping death.

Outside they know the the trees – the clouds

They have their friends like me

But here the dusky little room

Is all that they can see.

And they can't even say a word

To tell how much they long

For people smile and say “How sweet!”

To their broken-hearted song.

I told my teacher and he was still,

And looked into my eyes;

And then he took the cage and let

The bird free to the skies.

2. The Mother

Everyone in turn is my only mite

My sweetest babe

My dearest sprite

Everyone in turn is my fondest boast

And the one that I prize the most.

Sometimes it is my blue-eyed boy

Sometimes my slender girl

Sometimes I find my greatest joy

Is my infant's golden curl.

But always there's one who's my special pet

My darling babe

My precious brat

And always there's one in my lap who'll start

To climb into my heart.

Yes, sometimes it is my eldest one

Who can smile so gay

And run so fast

And sometimes it is the middle one

And sometimes the one born last.

3. The Cold

I had a cold, a sneezy cold

A snuffly teazy wheezy cold 

The doctor said to take a spoon

Of medicine morning night and noon.

I liked the task, I liked the smell

I surely thought I'd soon be well, 

And be once more upon my feet

Like other children on the street.

But oh! The cough, it lingered on

I waited and it wasn't gone!

No wonder for how could a spoon

Three times a day expel it soon?

I took the bottle to my bed

And when my mother came, I said,

“Now I'll be better, sure enough! 

For I have swallowed all the stuff!”

4. Church

On Sundays I may wear my hat

With posies on the crown

And I may put white socks on

For we're going into town

We're riding on the silver bus

We feel it throb and lurch

We'll get out when it stops at last

For we must go to Church.

On Sundays when the bells ring

I wear my whitest dress

And walk on tiptoes up the aisle

From very holiness.

For God is listening and He likes

The Stillness in His house

That's why I always hold my breath

And tiptoe like a mouse.

5. Running Away

My Mother wished to wash me, but I fled

into the night where stars shone o'er my head

I would not go into the lamplit realm

Where the bath reigned with curling wisps of steam

No, on my back I dropped on heaving ground

Where shrub to shrub gave forth its whispered sound.

And all the dazzling lights on Heaven's bow

Held fast my eyes till they no more let go.

Was I still looking up? Or did I swing

In peril o'er a gulf where night was king?

Was I but lightly clinging to Earth's extremity

Whilst looking down the abyss of Eternity?

It dizzied me, my hands grasped the green turf -

I feared to move lest I fall off the earth.

And what a breathless fall that fall would be

Till I struck bottom in Eternity.

I turned a summersault. My nose pressed in the grass

And under me I felt the earth's big mass

Faithful once more I felt it's firm embrace

And the sky rose to its accustomed place.

I ran into my yellow lamplit home

Where Mother waited with the brush and comb.

And where the bath no longer seemed a bane

I was so happy to be safe again!

6. The Princess

When I am grown I`'ll marry a Prince

With a white and tender face

He'll ride on a black and gleaming horse

And he'll wear a cloak with lace.

I'll be his Queen and I will live

In a Castle near the sea

The roses will bloom and everyone

Will come to bow to me.

That's why I wouldn't listen

When Jim sat on the gate

And promised he would marry me

If I would only wait.

7. My Rabbits

I had two snuffly rabbits

That flip-flopped over the place

With nibbly-nobbly habits

And lumpity lumpity pace.

They were my very ownest

To do with as I pleased

I used to feed them grasses

And watch them when they sneezed.

I called the male one Adam

He was the first I had

The female one was Eva

I fed her bits of bread.

One day I found my Adam

All stiffened in his shed.

His eyes were round and glassy

And I saw that he was dead.

It might have been the cold

It might have been the rain

But I never saw my Adam

Go hopping round again.

I took him on my knees

And I sadly stroked his fur

Which was as soft and silky

As though he could still stir.

His little eyes had looked at me

Only the day before

And he had eaten cabbage leaves

And wheedled me for more.

Once Adam and Eve were less than this

Stiff form upon my knees;

Yet they became a man and wife

Though God's enchanting breeze.

Perhaps if I just blew a whiff

Into his pink still nose

A miracle might happen

And it might be that he rose!

I blew and blew but only

The fur stirred on his back.

No light came to his glassy eye

No life in his limbs, alack!

I wept and scattered my tears upon

The stiff and breathless clod

And for the first, most bitter, time

I knew I was not God.

8. The Hut

We built a hut, my brother and I,

Over a sandy pit

With sticks that bowed and met above

And a sheet to cover it.

We sat and all around the rain

Came rushing, roaring down

We said if we were out in it

That we would surely drown.

We were happier than the birds

Perched up in the tree

And richer than kings and princes

In our splendid hut, were we.

And though the drops splashed freely

Through the thin sheet from the sky

We still sat gladly shivering

Believing we were dry.

9. The Master

I have a Master, his face is pale

And stern and a little sad

But when he smiles his face lights up

His very nose is glad.

I love to watch that smile of his

Whilst bending o'er my slate

And when his smiles are slow to come

I wait and wait and wait.

But once I brought a funny book

Which I lent him for awhile

That morning I couldn't do my sums

From watching teacher smile.

10. The Friend

I wish I had a bosom friend

Who loved me best of all,

Who'd give me all her books and dolls

And never scold or bawl.

I wish I had a bosom friend 

To sit with in a tree

To tell her all my secrets

And what I want to be.

To talk to in soft whispers

About angels wings and death

And the wonders of a baby

And how it draws its breath.

I wish I had a bosom friend

To walk with arm in arm

When the sun is dropping down to sea

And the evening weaves its charm.

I want a girl who'll understand

And think the way I do

But she must always love me most

And never walk with you.

11. The Walk

When I have to go out with a lot of people

I always lag behind

And then nurse is angry and tells me to hurry

But I don't mind.

For the noise of the trampling boots is too loud

And the tattling talk

All the fairies are frightened and fly away

Where grown people walk.

I want to go where the dust has settled

Back on the street

And twittering birds return to their branches

With merry tweet tweet!

I want to see ghostly wings of fairies

Flit through the trees

Their floating cobwebby veils all misty

And light on the breeze.

Then I walk very softly and I think

That perhaps I'm a fairy too,

And soon will have wings and fly in the night

And drink the morning dew.

That is what I would like the most 

To be born in the cup

Of a wet white flower in the light of the moon

And forever to sup

With the fragile fairies on honey and mist

And call each blossom my home

And forever to own the sweet twilight hours

And the night's vast dome.

Well I would sleep, rocked by the night-wind

On a thin reed

I would live like a spirit, transparent and cool

Without aching or need.

And when I wished I could open my wings

And soar up ahead

As light as a bubble to dizzying heights

Of the sky blue and glad.

I wouldn't need mother or father or friend

Like a bloom

I would be enough to myself with plenty 

Of room.

That's why I like to watch fairies a -flit

Through the trees,

For one day the miracle may happen and I may

Be one of these.

And that's why I lag and loiter behind

And don't mind.