Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, KITTY CLOVER, by CARRIE W. THOMPSON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

KITTY CLOVER, by                    
First Line: Midget, gypsy, big-eyed elf, little kitty clover
Last Line: "so my brook won't wet its feet!"
Variant Title(s): Lulu
Subject(s): Children; Gypsies; Childhood; Gipsies


"MIDGET, gypsy, big-eyed elf, little Kitty Clover,
What have you been playing at for this hour and over?
Where have you been wandering, in the name of wonder?
Weren't you frightened at the wind? Are you fond of thunder?
Were you in a fairies' cave while the rain was falling,
With your ears sewn tightly up, not to hear me calling?
Who has taught your hair to curl?
Where's your apron, dirty girl?"

"Now my brains is all mussed up, got too big a headful;
Fifteen questions at a time mixes me up dreadful.
Course I been a visiting, me and Rainy Weather, --
Sure to find the birds at home when we go together;
Guess my ears was full of songs so I didn't hear you,
Else because you stayed at home I got too far from near you.
Once some little thing said low,
'Mamma wants you, Lu, I know.'

"'Spect it was that funny bird that kept and kept a singing,
While the rain was coming down and thunder-bells was ringing.
'Oh, you goosie-bird,' I said, 'rains like sixty-seven,
And your song'll get so wet it can't fly up to heaven;
Did you swallow it one day when you was a drinking?
Is it all the talk you've got, or only just your thinking?
Or do songs come up and sprout,
And rain makes'em blossom out?'

"Then the bird came close to me, -- mamma, he did, truly, --
Said, 'I never told before, but I'll tell you, Luly:
One day God got tired of heaven and the angels' singing,
Thought their harps were out of tune, made such awful dinging;
So he sang a piece of song, put some feathers round it,
Then he threw it in a tree, where some bird's name found it;
And he mixed the song and name
Till they grew the very same.'

"Mamma, what you smiling at? Hadn't you better hold me?
I'll be tired a saying through what the birdie told me:
God sends word down by the rain when he wants to hear him, --
That is why the whisper-drops tinkle by so near him.
Should you think his song would lose? I can tell you better!
It don't have so far to go as my grandma's letter;
Earth and heaven's so close apart,
God can catch it in his heart.

"'T was the wind that curled my hair, -- didn't he fix it funny?
Combed and twisted it like this 'thout a spec' of money;
Where's my apron? Let me see! I must think it over --
'Fraid you've got a naughty girl for your Kitty Clover,
'Cause I gave that to the brook with the big stones in it,
Where it has to run across every little minute;
Covered'em all dry and neat,
So my brook won't wet its feet!"





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