Living

A Joyful Song of Five

by Katherine Mansfield 1888–1923

From Poems (1923): Child Verses, 1907

Living

Come, let us all sing very high
And all sing very loud
And keep on singing in the street
Until there’s quite a crowd;

And keep on singing in the house
And up and down the stairs;
Then underneath the furniture
Let’s all play Polar bears;

And crawl about with doormats on,
And growl and howl and squeak,
Then in the garden let us fly
And play at hide and seek;

And “Here we gather Nuts and May,”
“I wrote a Letter” too,
“Here we go round the Mulberry Bush,”
“The Child who lost its shoe”;

And every game we ever played.
And then--to stay alive--
Let’s end with lots of Birthday Cake
Because to-day you’re five.

MLA

Mansfield, Katherine. “A Joyful Song of Five.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/mansfield_k/50/.

Chicago

Mansfield, Katherine. “A Joyful Song of Five.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/mansfield_k/50/.

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