Doubt not that I know the way--the garden-gate is clapping:
Who forgot to lock it last deserves his fingers slapping.
When they find we can't be found, oh won't there be a chorus!
You and I may laugh at that, with all the world before us.
All the world, the great green world that lies beyond the paling!
All the sea, the great round sea where ducks and drakes are sailing!
I a knight, my charger thou, together we will wander
Out into that grassy waste where dwells the Goosey Gander.
Months ago, my faithful steed, that Goose attacked your master;
How it hissed, and how I cried! It ran, but I ran faster!
Down upon my face I fell, its awful wings were o'er me,
Mother came and picked me up, and off to bed she bore me.
Months have passed, my faithful steed, both you and I are older,
Sheathless is my wooden sword, my heart I think is bolder.
Always ready bridled thou, with reins of crimson leather;
Woe betide the Goose to-day who meets us both together!
Up then now, my hobby-horse, my steed of prancing paces!
Time it is that you and I won something more than races.
I a knight, my charger thou, together we will wander
Out into that grassy waste where dwells the Goosey Gander.
THE DOLLS' WASH.
Sally is the laundress, and every Saturday
She sends our clean clothes up from the wash, and Nurse puts them away.
Sometimes Sally is very kind, but sometimes she's as cross as a Turk;
When she's good-humoured we like to go and watch her at work.
She has tubs and a copper in the wash-house, and a great big fire and
plenty of soap;
And outside is the drying-ground with tall posts, and pegs bought from
the gipsies, and long lines of rope.
The laundry is indoors with another big fire, and long tables, and a
lot of irons, and a crimping-machine;
And horses (not live ones with tails, but clothes-horses) and the same
starch that is used by the Queen.
Sally wears pattens in the wash-house, and turns up her sleeves, and
splashes, and rubs,
And makes beautiful white lather which foams over the tops of the tubs,
Like waves at the seaside dashing against the rocks, only not so
strong.
If I were Sally I should sit and blow soap-bubbles all the day long.
Sally is angry sometimes because of the way we dirty our frocks,
Making mud pies, and rolling down the lawn, and climbing trees, and
scrambling over the rocks.
She says we do it on purpose, and never try to take care;
But if things have got to go to the wash, what can it matter how
dirty they are?
Last week Mary and I got a lot of kingcups from the bog, and I
carried them home in my skirt;
It was the end of the week, and our frocks were done, so we didn't
mind about the dirt.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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