A Naughty Boy

Poems, in the form of nursery rhymes, were, for many of us, our introduction to stories. I will post a favourite poem each week. Email me your favourite poems and I will post them too.

This week, I've chosen another poem by my favourite poet John Keats. After I posted Mrs Reynold's Cat, Kwan said to me: "I had no idea Keats wrote poems like that. I thought he was only good at love sick, romantic verses!!" Ha Ha! Yes, I guess people do have that impression of the poet. The fact that he died young, of consumption, only heightens the image of a tortured young man who could only write angsty, love-lorn poetry.

Well, I'm happy to report that Keats actually had a great sense of humour and did much more than mope about thinking of his girlfriend Frances Brawne. One of the things he liked doing best was go on walking holidays and he wrote this week's poem while on a walking tour of Scotland.

The poem was written especially for his little sister, also called Frances, and enclosed in a letter to her.

The picture I've chosen to accompany the picture is of Keats looking, I think, rather naughty, which, as you will see, fits the poem.

A Song About Myself

There was a naughty boy,
A naughty boy was he,
He would not stop at home,
He could not quite be-
He took
In his knapsack
A book
Full of vowels
And a shirt
With some towels,
A slight cap
For night cap,
A hair brush,
Comb ditto,
New stockings -
For old ones
Would split O!
This knapsack
Tight at ‘s back
He rivetted close
And followed his nose
To the North,
To the North,
And followed his nose to the North.

There was a naughty boy
And a naughty boy was he,
For nothing would he do
But scribble poetry -
He took
An ink stand
In his hand
And a Pen
Big as ten
In the other.
And away
In a Pother
He ran
To the mountains
And fountains
And ghostes
And Postes
And witches
And ditches
And wrote
In his coat
When the weather
Was cool fear of gout,
And without
When the weather
Was warm -
Och the charm
When we choose
To follow one's nose
To the North,
To the North,
To follow one's nose to the North!

There was a naughty boy
And a naughty boy was he,
He kept little fishes
In washing tubs three
In spite
Of the might
Of the Maid
Nor affraid
Of his Granny-good -
He often would
Hurly burly
get up early
And go
By hook or crook
To the brook
And bring home
Miller's thumb,
Tittlebat
Not over fat,
Minnows small
As the stall
of a glove,
Not above
the size
Of a nice
Little baby's
Little fingers -
O he made
'Twas his trade
of fish a pretty Kettle
A Kettle - a kettle
Of fish a pretty Kettle
A Kettle!

There was a naughty boy,
And a naughty boy was he,
He ran away to Scotland
The people for to see--
There he found
That the ground
Was as hard,
That a yard
Was as long,
That a song
Was as merry,
That a cherry
Was as red--
That lead
Was as weighty
That fourscore
Was as eighty
That a door
Was as wooden
As in England---
So he stood in his shoes
And he wondered,
He wondered,
He stood in his shoes
And he wondered.

By John Keats