Rebecca Reads

I found Poems Every Child Should Know, which was edited by Mary E. Burt and published in 1904, on the Project Gutenberg site. I was looking for poems by Rudyard Kipling, but I decided to look at all of this, as I have a child and want him to know what he “should” know.

I’ve only skimmed it, and I love it so far. I did come across a (more) complete “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” I didn’t know the rest of it. Reading it is different, because it obviously doesn’t follow the familiar song.

TWINKLE, TWINKLE, LITTLE STAR.

Twinkle, twinkle, little star!
How I wonder what you are,
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.

When the glorious sun is set,
When the grass with dew is wet,
Then you show your little light,
Twinkle, twinkle all the night.

In the dark-blue sky you keep,
And often through my curtains peep,
For you never shut your eye,
Till the sun is in the sky.

As your bright and tiny spark
Guides the traveller in the dark,
Though I know not what you are,
Twinkle, twinkle, little star!

Question: Why don’t we know what the star is? I always think it is odd to say “How I wonder what you are.”

• Poetry for Young People: Robert Louis Stevenson (edited by Frances Schoonmaker)
• Poetry Friday: Sonnet 73 by William Shakespeare
• Poetry Friday: If by Rudyard Kipling
• Lullabies
• Tags: childhood, nursery rhymes, Poetry Friday