Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, BARBARA BLUE, by ALICE CARY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

BARBARA BLUE, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: There was an old lady named barbara blue
Last Line: Apples and all!
Subject(s): Spinsters; Avarice; Apples


THERE was an old woman
Named Barbara Blue,
But not the old woman
Who lived in a shoe,
And didn't know what
With her children to do.

For she that I tell of
Lived all alone,
A miserly creature
As ever was known.
And had never a chick
Or child of her own.

She kept very still,
Some said she was meek;
Others said she was only
Too stingy to speak;
That her little dog fed
On one bone for a week!

She made apple-pies,
And she made them so tart
That the mouths of the children
Who ate them would smart;
And these she went peddling
About in a cart.

One day, on her travels,
She happened to meet
A farmer, who said
He had apples so sweet
That all the town's-people
Would have them to eat.

"And how do you sell them?"
Says Barbara Blue.
"Why, if you want only
A bushel or two,"
Says the farmer, "I don't mind
To give them to you."

"What! give me a bushel?"
Cries Barbara Blue,
"A bushel of apples,
And sweet apples, too!"
"Be sure," says the farmer,
"Be sure, ma'am, I do."

And then he said if she
Would give him a tart
(She had a great basket full
There in her cart),
He would show her the orchard,
And then they would part.

So she picked out a little one,
Burnt at the top,
And held it a moment,
And then let it drop,
And then said she hadn't
A moment to stop,
And drove her old horse
Away, hippity hop!

One night when the air was
All blind with the snow,
Dame Barbara, driving
So soft and so slow
That the farmer her whereabouts
Never would know,

Went after the apples;
And avarice grew
When she saw their red coats,
Till, before she was through,
She took twenty bushels,
Instead of the two!

She filled the cart full,
And she heaped it a-top,
And if just an apple
Fell off, she would stop,
And then drive ahead again,
Hippity hop!

Her horse now would stumble,
And now he would fall,
And where the high river-bank
Sloped like a wall,
Sheer down, they went over it,
Apples and all!





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