Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, LITTLE GILBERT TO LITTLE RACHEL, DURING HER ILLNESS, by MARGARET LOUISA WOODS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

LITTLE GILBERT TO LITTLE RACHEL, DURING HER ILLNESS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Rachel! Tell me what you know
Last Line: Give you all I have—a kiss.
Alternate Author Name(s): Woods, Mrs. Margaret Louisa Bradley
Subject(s): Children; Sickness; Childhood; Illness


RACHEL! tell me what you know,
Tell me where the shadows go;
For before I'm sent to sleep
I can watch them run and creep,
Rock and spring and fly and fall
On the ceiling and the wall—
Troops of shadows at their games
Dancing to the dancing flames.
Soon as I have done with sleep
All about I look and peep,
But the shadows steal away,
Hide themselves before the day.

Rachel! you must know of it,
For they say you often sit
Wide awake through all the hours
As the bells do in the towers.
You must see the shadows hide,
Though there is so much beside
That you have to keep in sight,
Things of day and things of night—
Sheep and elephants in herds,
Woolly dogs and fluffy birds,
Jugs and mugs and Pretty Polls,
Dolls with caps and caps with dolls,
Little drawers with little handles,
Chairs and tables, stars and candles:
Then the angels four that keep
Watch when all the world's asleep,
Standing silent in their places
With bird-wings and mother-faces.

Things to watch on every side;
But your eyes are very wide,
Every thing I'm sure they see
Though you will not answer me.
Tell me where the shadows go,
And I'll tell you what I know—

Tell you what my garden grows,
There they stand and nod in rows—
Creatures, call them what you please,
Perhaps they're flowers, perhaps they're trees.
If you saw them in their places
With their great round yellow faces,
Nodding, bowing solemnly,
Staring so at you and me,
Though you'd meant to cry before,
You would have to laugh I'm sure.

You are smiling, looking wise,
Listening, listening with your eyes;
You will tell me where they go,
And I'll tell you what I know—
What the lambs say to their mother
And the birds to one another,
In the pear-tree as they fly.
I will dance and by-and-by
Sing to you, and after this
Give you all I have—a kiss.





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