The very title of the book this came from is a delight: “Mother Goose’s Melodies. The only Pure Edition. Containing all that have ever come to light of her memorable writings, together with those which have been discovered among the mss. of Herculaneum, likewise every one recently found in the same stone box which hold the golden plates of the Book of Mormon. The whole compared, revised, and sanctioned, by one of the annotators of the Goose family. Boston: Munroe and Francis, 1833.” Many of the old Mother Goose favorites are there, but the penultimate poem is this one.
A four year-old boy, and I know him quite well,
He wished to peruse Mother Goose for a spell,
But his own mother said fie,
fie, boy:
Here’s nice catechisms, primers, hymn-books and so,
All written by Emerson, Worcester, and co.
Don’t read that nonsensical
fry, boy.
Besides too, here’s aunty’s New Goosey Book, dear,*
For musical charming it has no compeer,
With its ‘Radener, tadorer,
tan do ree too.’
You may read her unvulgar and moral-sense book,
For Goose’s effects are all clean away
shook,
’Twill be noticed I hope in the next Mother’s Book,
With its ‘Ringely, ringely,
dahre roo noo,’
And its ‘Troliloli lo loo, its
troliloli lo loo.’
*If Tommy’s mother does not here refer to E. L. F.’s Little Songs for Little Children, recently graduated at Cambridge, I don’t know what she means.
“I don’t want to read how a hen has two legs,
About time how he flies, and a beggar who begs,
Or a text with a chapter and
verse to’t;
I learn these in school and I say them to you,
I want to read nonsense a minute or two,
I’ll promise to act none the
worse for’t.
“You redde it yourself, ma’, to Charles and to Jane,
It kept them both quiet when they were in pain,
And you said there was nothing
like Goose.
And grandma’ repeats it and knows every rhyme,
And nurse has amused Tommy many a time,
What now is the matter with
Goose?”
This poem is followed by a note signed by GILBERT GOSLING: “I think that the whole of the above poem is an interpolation, although it was recently found among many others of my venerable ancestor's papers: but it is best to insert it, on the same ground that some of the disputed dramas of SHAKESPEARE were inserted among his genuine works, namely, there are many things in it worthy such a writer. And here I must take infinite credit to myself for my indefatigable labour in hunting out and bringing to light many lost gems, which would never have sparkled at this day, nor been the cause of sparkling in others, but for me.”
