Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE CHILD ALONE by MARGARET LOUISA WOODS

First Line: TIS A PLEASANT THING TO BE FREE
Last Line: A PIRATE THAT THEY PUT TO BED?
Subject(s): CHILDREN; SOLITUDE; CHILDHOOD; LONELINESS;
'TIS a pleasant thing to be free.
Nobody knows, nobody guesses
What I am doing, where I am staying.
"Where is Marjorie?" mother is saying.
Julie, who loves to sit making her dresses,
Says, "She is playing
Under the tree."

No—through the jungle Marjorie passes.
Sometimes I run, sometimes I stand
Still in a covert of high-waving grasses,
Over my head.
Wilderness ways, uninhabited land,
Lone I explore.

Hares in the grass, mice where I tread,
Look up and wonder;
Or the squirrel flashes
Red as he dashes
Over the leafy forest floor.
Then in the tree
High sits he
And mocks me under;
While all of them, all of them wonder, wonder
What I can be.

I was a child, a little child,
I am a happy creature wild.
I used to have to run or walk
As I was bid, be still or talk;
To shun the wind or sun or show'r,
And then come in at such an hour.
I was a child, a little child,
I am a happy creature wild.

For see I wander like a deer
That sniffs about the furrowed bole
Of some great tree, or starts in fear
From every leaf that trembles near;
Or neighing like a frolic foal
That prances in a field at play,
I gallop farther on my way.
Sometimes a beech-mast tumbles thro',
I strip it daintily to find
The nut within its wooden rind,
And nibbling sit as squirrels do.
I was a child, a little child,
I am a happy creature wild.

Now, now again,
Reversing the spell,
Turning this plain
Little ring on my finger,
See I regain
Form of a child, spirit as well.
Yet I am free, no one can tell
Margie to haste, come and not linger.
Turn it again, thrice must it turn,
Thrice the sunlight flicker and burn
Deep in the heart of its single gem—
And see I ride from Jerusalem.

I am a knight; the paynim horde
Have felt the weight of this good sword
About the Sepulchre of Our Lord.

'Tis a sinister woodland deep and wide,
Alone I ride.
Saint Hubert scatter the demon breed!
Mary Mother be my guide!
Up the glade at rushing speed,
What comes shining, what comes sweeping?
'Tis a band of mailed men
And a lady passing fair,
Whom they carry to their den
Gleaming in her golden hair.
Ha! I come, like lightning leaping,
Thrust and hew mid caitiff clamour.
Beat the stubborn thorn-bush down!
Cleave and rend the bracken's crown!
Not a stalk be left upright!
Now they know the paynim's hammer,
Now they know King Richard's knight.

Turn, turn again,
Magical ring.
I am a Dane,
Cunning and brave,
A pirate king.
Swiftly I come over the wave.

The shore, the Saxon town I see.
The smoke hangs blue on roof and tree
At evening over the little town.
I hear the bells in the grey church tow'r.
With fire and sword at midnight hour
I mean to harry and burn it down.
But fierce as a wolf, as a raven wise,
I come at first in a deep disguise
To the little town.
And when I climb to the nursery yonder
They'll call me Marjorie, and wonder
Why I should want to run away
And be as any rabbit wild;
For I shall seem to be a child
Named Marjorie. What would they say
If they could know it was instead
A pirate that they put to bed?



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