Little Ditties I
Little Ditties I
Original Text
W. B. Rand, Lilliput Lyrics, ed. R. Brimley Johnson (London: John Lane, the Bodley Head, 1899): 195-97. del F Fisher Rare Book Library.
1Winifred Waters sat and sighed
2 Under a weeping willow;
3When she went to bed she cried,
4 Wetting all the pillow;
5Kept on crying night and day,
6 Till her friends lost patience;
7"What shall we do to stop her, pray?"
8 So said her relations.
9Send her to the sandy plains,
10 In the zone called torrid:
11Send her where it never rains,
12 Where the heat is horrid.
13Mind that she has only flour
14 For her daily feeding;
15Let her have a page an hour
16 Of the driest reading,--
17Navigation, logarithm,
18 All that kind of knowledge,--
19Ancient pedigrees go with 'em,
20 From the Heralds' College.
21When the poor girl has endured
22 Six months of this drying,
23Winifred will come back cured,
24 Let us hope, of crying.
25Then she will not day by day
26 Make those mournful faces,
27And we shall not have to say,
28 "Wring her pillow-cases."
Publication Start Year
1899
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 2000.
Rhyme