Little Boy Blue
Little Boy Blue
Original Text
Eugene Field, Lullaby-Land: Poems of Childhood (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1904): 185-88; facsimile copy of autograph ms in Slason Thompson's Life of Eugene Field (New York: Appleton, 1927): opp. p. 318.
1The Little toy dog is covered with dust,
3And the little toy soldier is red with rust,
4 And the musket moulds in his hands.
5Time was when the little toy dog was new,
6 And the soldier was passing fair;
7And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue
8 Kissed them and put them there.
9"Now, don't you go till I come," he said,
10 "And don't you make any noise!"
12 He dreamt of the pretty toys;
13And, as he was dreaming, an angel song
14 Awakened our Little Boy Blue--
15Oh! the years are many, the years are long,
16 But the little toy friends are true!
17Aye, faithful to Little Boy Blue they stand,
18 Each in the same old place--
19Awaiting the touch of a little hand,
20 The smile of a little face;
21And they wonder, as waiting the long years through
22 In the dust of that little chair,
23What has become of our Little Boy Blue,
24 Since he kissed them and put them there.
Publication Start Year
1888
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 1997.
Rhyme