Timeless Verses: Rediscovering Classic Poetry for Children

To discuss poetry specifically for children might initially seem redundant. With traditional rhymed and metered poetry often marginalized in contemporary literary circles, children’s literature appears to be one of the last strongholds of these forms. Indeed, a significant portion of books aimed at young children are written in rhyme. However, it’s often clear that authors (and editors) sometimes lack a deep understanding of prosody, leading to awkward meter and forced rhymes in modern children’s books.

Yet, there are notable exceptions. The works of Julia Donaldson, like The Gruffalo and The Snail and The Whale, are a pleasure to read aloud, featuring clever rhymes, strong meter, and creative use of repetition and refrain, perhaps reflecting her background as a songwriter. Lynley Dodd, creator of the Hairy Maclary books, also masterfully employs rhyme and alliteration, though occasional metrical slips suggest her skill might be more intuitive than technical. And, of course, the enduring popularity of Dr. Seuss highlights the appeal of structured verse. Add to this the persistence of nursery rhymes and the (sadly diminishing) oral tradition of schoolyard chants, and it might seem that children’s culture is steeped in poetry.

The apparent ubiquity of rhymed and metered poetry in books for very young children might lead some to view traditional forms as simplistic or “childish,” lacking the perceived sophistication of contemporary free verse. I would argue, however, that some fundamental truths are so self-evident they can only be doubted by educated adults. In rhyme, meter, assonance, and alliteration, we encounter something essential about the magic and musicality of language itself. Sadly, though, around the age of five or six, exposure to rich, formal poetry often dwindles. Children are frequently directed towards artless prose, melodrama, and increasing cynicism, culminating perhaps in a fascination with worlds like Hogwarts, which, while imaginative, often lack the linguistic depth found in classic verse.

This wasn’t always the case. Not long ago, studying poetry was a standard part of the school curriculum, so much so that decades later, figures like Harry Truman could quote lines from poems learned in childhood, even if the author’s name had faded from memory. Fortunately for us, the foundational texts for such a curriculum are still readily available. While many modern publishers may overlook the value of traditional poetry for children, we can turn to the past. By examining the works of accomplished poets who wrote or whose work is suitable for young readers, we can rediscover fundamental aspects of poetic form – from its function as a mnemonic device to the sheer pleasure derived from language’s musicality. Later, academia might teach them to appreciate poetry intellectually, but for now, we can introduce children to the magical world of traditional poetry – a realm often absurd, sometimes slightly eerie, but always possessing a magic prose cannot replicate.

Here are a few classic pieces, presented roughly chronologically, that serve as wonderful introductions to traditional poetry for children.

1. “Sweet and Low” by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Alfred Lord Tennyson, one of the most celebrated English poets, wrote many poems accessible to younger readers. His enduring popularity stems partly from his ability to operate at the highest artistic level while remaining largely understandable to anyone willing to listen. Although this accessibility has sometimes led modern critics to dismiss his work as merely “populist,” it is precisely why many of his poems connect with a wide audience, including children. Tennyson wrote little specifically for children. His exquisite lyric, “Sweet And Low,” though now widely known as a lullaby, was originally an interlude in his 1847 satirical epic The Princess.

Today, “Sweet And Low” far eclipses the fame of the larger work it came from. Its gentle, rocking rhythm, created by predominantly trochaic meter, combined with soothing alliteration (“sleep,” “sweet,” “sea,” “silver”) and repetition (“Sweet and low, sweet and low,” “sleep and rest, sleep and rest”), creates a profound sense of comfort and longing. The vaguely plaintive note and the promise of reunion (“Father will come to thee soon”) elevate this piece from a simple folk-style lyric to high art. It’s a poem of rare beauty that resonates deeply, appealing equally to children and adults. Reading it aloud, perhaps as an actual lullaby, demonstrates the powerful, immediate emotional impact of carefully crafted language and rhythm.

Sweet And Low

Sweet and low, sweet and low,
__Wind of the western sea,
Low, low, breathe and blow,
__Wind of the western sea!
Over the rolling waters go,
__Come from the dying moon, and blow,
Blow him again to me;
__While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps.

Sleep and rest, sleep and rest,
__Father will come to thee soon;
Rest, rest, on mother’s breast,
__Father will come to thee soon;
Father will come to his babe in the nest,
__Silver sails all out of the west,
Under the silver moon:
__Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep.

2. “Goblin Market” by Christina Rossetti

The youngest of the famed Rossetti artistic family, Christina Rossetti was a prolific poet whose work spanned genres, from simple nursery rhymes to complex, often somber, religious poems in both English and Italian. Her strong religious convictions and openly feminine perspective have sometimes made her less fashionable among certain modern academics compared to poets like Emily Dickinson. However, she was a truly gifted and often daring poet, whose approach to meter – loose yet highly musical – influenced later poets like Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Her most famous work, “Goblin Market,” published in 1862, is a key text of the Pre-Raphaelite movement in literature and has prompted considerable critical debate over its meaning for more than a century. Rossetti herself maintained that the tale of two sisters, one tempted and ensnared by “goblin” fruits and the other redeeming her through self-sacrifice, held no profound allegorical meaning beyond its moral lesson. However, the poem’s potent blend of haunting fairytale imagery, sensuous description, and Christian ethics speaks powerfully for itself, open to numerous interpretations ranging from commentary on Victorian social issues to explorations of temptation, redemption, and sisterly love.

At nearly 600 lines, “Goblin Market” is too lengthy to include in its entirety here. However, its opening lines offer a compelling introduction to its unique atmosphere and musicality. This section introduces the strange, enticing cries of the goblin merchants and the reactions of the two sisters, Laura and Lizzie, setting the stage for the narrative that follows. The poem uses an irregular, often assonant-heavy rhythm that feels both organic and subtly hypnotic, drawing the reader into its enchanted, dangerous world. While the full poem delves into darker themes of addiction and salvation, the opening section, with its vibrant list of fruits and the sisters’ contrasting responses, is immediately captivating for young readers, introducing them to a world of fantasy and moral choice conveyed through rich, rhythmic language.

Goblin Market (Excerpt)

Illustration depicting Laura and Lizzie by a brookside, listening to goblin cries from the glen.

Morning and evening
Maids heard the goblins cry:
“Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy:
Apples and quinces,
Lemons and oranges,
Plump unpeck’d cherries,
Melons and raspberries,
Bloom-down-cheek’d peaches,
Swart-headed mulberries,
Wild free-born cranberries,
Crab-apples, dewberries,
Pine-apples, blackberries,
Apricots, strawberries;—
All ripe together
In summer weather,—
Morns that pass by,
Fair eves that fly;
Come buy, come buy:
Our grapes fresh from the vine,
Pomegranates full and fine,
Dates and sharp bullaces,
Rare pears and greengages,
Damsons and bilberries,
Taste them and try:
Currants and gooseberries,
Bright-fire-like barberries,
Figs to fill your mouth,
Citrons from the South,
Sweet to tongue and sound to eye;
Come buy, come buy.”

Evening by evening
Among the brookside rushes,
Laura bow’d her head to hear,
Lizzie veil’d her blushes:
Crouching close together
In the cooling weather,
With clasping arms and cautioning lips,
With tingling cheeks and finger tips.
“Lie close,” Laura said,
Pricking up her golden head:
“We must not look at goblin men,
We must not buy their fruits:
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots?”
“Come buy,” call the goblins
Hobbling down the glen.

“Oh,” cried Lizzie, “Laura, Laura,
You should not peep at goblin men.”
Lizzie cover’d up her eyes,
Cover’d close lest they should look;
Laura rear’d her glossy head,
And whisper’d like the restless brook:
“Look, Lizzie, look, Lizzie,
Down the glen tramp little men.
One hauls a basket,
One bears a plate,
One lugs a golden dish
Of many pounds weight.
How fair the vine must grow
Whose grapes are so luscious;
How warm the wind must blow
Through those fruit bushes.”
“No,” said Lizzie, “No, no, no;
Their offers should not charm us,
Their evil gifts would harm us.”
She thrust a dimpled finger
In each ear, shut eyes and ran:
Curious Laura chose to linger
Wondering at each merchant man.
One had a cat’s face,
One whisk’d a tail,
One tramp’d at a rat’s pace,
One crawl’d like a snail,
One like a wombat prowl’d obtuse and furry,
One like a ratel tumbled hurry skurry.
She heard a voice like voice of doves
Cooing all together:
They sounded kind and full of loves
In the pleasant weather.

(For the complete poem, readers can explore further online.)

3. “The Owl and the Pussycat” by Edward Lear

Any collection of children’s verse would be incomplete without Edward Lear. His name is virtually synonymous with “nonsense poetry,” and he was an important predecessor to poets like Dr. Seuss. Nonsense is, in fact, an ancient literary genre, and much academic effort has been expended on interpreting it as a subversion of natural order or, in Lear’s case, a reaction against Puritan morality. Such analyses often miss the core element that “The Owl And The Pussycat” captures so perfectly: the sheer, unadulterated joy that nonsense can create.

Far from being subversive, the poem’s delightful absurdities—like wrapping money in a five-pound note, a turkey conducting a marriage, or the utterly undefinable “runcible spoon”—imbue it with an otherworldly charm and a sense of mystery. These elements can reawaken, even in the most jaded adults, the feeling that the world is a truly magical and unexpected place. The poem’s simple AAB CCB rhyme scheme and regular meter (mostly anapestic tetrameter with shorter lines) create a cheerful, rollicking rhythm that perfectly matches the whimsical narrative. It’s a perfect example of how form and content work together to create a specific mood and experience, demonstrating that structure doesn’t inhibit creativity but can, in fact, enhance it, especially for young ears attuned to rhythm and sound.

The Owl And The Pussycat

Illustrated scene from The Owl and The Pussycat by Edward Lear, showing the Owl and Pussycat sailing in a pea-green boat.

I

The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
__In a beautiful pea-green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
__Wrapped up in a five-pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
__And sang to a small guitar,
“O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love,
__What a beautiful Pussy you are,
____You are,
____You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!”

II

Pussy said to the Owl, “You elegant fowl!
__How charmingly sweet you sing!
O let us be married! too long we have tarried:
__But what shall we do for a ring?”
They sailed away, for a year and a day,
__To the land where the Bong-Tree grows
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood
__With a ring at the end of his nose,
____His nose,
____His nose,
With a ring at the end of his nose.

III

“Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
Your ring?” Said the Piggy, “I will.”
So they took it away, and were married next day
By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
____The moon,
____The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.

4. “Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll

“Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas—only I don’t exactly know what they are!” exclaims Alice after reading “Jabberwocky” in Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871). This famous nonsense poem, initially conceived as a parody of Anglo-Saxon verse, occupies a different end of the nonsense spectrum than Lear’s work. Its narrative is almost entirely obscured behind a barrage of neologisms, rivaling Dr. Seuss at his most inventive. In fact, several words now common in the English language, such as “galumphing” and “chortle,” originated in this very poem.

While this might seem self-indulgent or meaningless to a strictly logical mind, pragmatic adults would do well to remember that much language is initially “nonsense” to a child’s ears. Many words seem fraught with danger or mystery simply by their sound and feel, even before their meaning is grasped. By venturing outside the established lexicon into the realm of pure sound and inventive wordplay, Carroll captures a fundamental essence of poetry: its capacity to communicate mood, action, and character through rhythm, sound, and evocative (even if invented) imagery, often bypassing conventional meaning. The poem’s structure, with its repeated stanza framing the narrative, provides a familiar anchor within the linguistic chaos, making the adventure of decoding or simply experiencing the sounds all the more thrilling for a young reader. “Jabberwocky” celebrates the playful power of language and the imagination’s ability to build worlds from sound.

Jabberwocky

Illustration depicting a boy facing the Jabberwock monster in a wooded area, from a 1902 edition of Through the Looking-Glass.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
__Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
__And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
__The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
__The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand;
__Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree
__And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
__The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
__And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
__The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
__He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
__Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
__He chortled in his joy.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
__Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
__And the mome raths outgrabe.

5. “Silver” by Walter de la Mare

Lord David Cecil once wrote that Walter de la Mare’s fame was “most likely to endure” among his contemporary English writers. Unfortunately, history has proven him wrong; it is lamentable how little of de la Mare’s work remains widely known or in print. This is a great disservice, as few writers have approached the task of writing for young readers with such seriousness and dedication to craft. Fewer still possessed such a fertile, childlike imagination. De la Mare (1873-1956) firmly believed that children harbored a visionary imagination that often faded upon entering the adult world of strict logic and deduction.

While many poems suitable for children tend towards narrative or nonsense, “Silver,” from de la Mare’s celebrated collection Peacock Pie (1913), is a piece of pure lyricism. Its imagery is both simple and stunningly beautiful. Unlike writers who might strive for effect when writing for children, de la Mare employs admirable restraint and great skill, allowing the accumulating images to build gently until the entire scene seems bathed in a cool, silvery light. The simple ABAB CDCD… rhyme scheme and steady, soft rhythm create a calming, almost hypnotic effect, perfectly complementing the quiet scene. Like much of the poetry in his volumes Songs of Childhood and Peacock Pie, this piece is so sublime that it blurs the lines between writing for children and writing to adults about the world of childhood perception. It invites readers into a quiet moment of observing the world transformed by moonlight, teaching them to see the extraordinary in the ordinary through the power of descriptive language and subtle sound.

Silver

A serene scene of ruins bathed in moonlight, suggesting the silver light described in Walter de la Mare's poem.

Slowly, silently, now the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon;
This way, and that, she peers, and sees
Silver fruit upon silver trees;
One by one the casements catch
Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;
Couched in his kennel, like a log,
With paws of silver sleeps the dog;
From their shadowy cote the white breasts peep
Of doves in a silver-feathered sleep;
A harvest mouse goes scampering by,
With silver claws and a silver eye;
And moveless fish in the water gleam,
By silver reeds in a silver stream.

6. “Matilda, Who Told Lies, and Was Burned to Death” by Hilaire Belloc

From the sublime, we turn to the darkly comical. The short moral fables in Hilaire Belloc’s Cautionary Tales For Children (1907) are written in light, lively couplets of iambic tetrameter, which layer a cheerful veneer over their utterly ruthless lessons. While they might strike some modern sensibilities as morbid, these poems were a clear influence on later writers like Roald Dahl, and their legacy persists, albeit often in a diluted form, in contemporary children’s literature. Adults, with a more developed sense of tragedy, might recoil from the apparent delight Belloc takes in the misfortunes of his ill-behaved protagonists. However, the devout and upright Belloc shrewdly channels a child’s innate (and often suppressed) relish for destruction and absurdity towards ostensibly instructive ends, all while subtly satirizing the dour moralizing common in the Victorian era.

“Matilda” is a prime example. The poem’s jaunty rhythm and simple rhyme scheme make the gruesome outcome all the more shocking and, perversely, memorable. Belloc doesn’t just tell a story; he performs it with a mischievous, deadpan tone that children often find hilarious, recognizing the exaggeration and the underlying satirical jab at adult hypocrisies. By presenting exaggerated consequences for relatively minor transgressions (lying), Belloc highlights the arbitrary nature of some rules and the often absurd results of ignoring them, all wrapped in technically skillful verse that is a joy to read aloud for its rhythm and timing. It’s a bracing dose of dark humor and formal excellence that trusts children to handle a bit of the ridiculous and the macabre.

Matilda, Who Told Lies, and Was Burned to Death

Matilda told such Dreadful Lies,
It made one Gasp and Stretch one’s Eyes;
Her Aunt, who, from her Earliest Youth,
Had kept a Strict Regard for Truth,
Attempted to Believe Matilda:
The effort very nearly killed her,
And would have done so, had not She
Discovered this Infirmity.
For once, towards the Close of Day,
Matilda, growing tired of play,
And finding she was left alone,
Went tiptoe to the Telephone
And summoned the Immediate Aid
Of London’s Noble Fire-Brigade.
Within an hour the Gallant Band
Were pouring in on every hand,
From Putney, Hackney Downs, and Bow
With Courage high and Hearts a-glow
They galloped, roaring through the Town
‘Matilda’s House is Burning Down!’
Inspired by British Cheers and Loud
Proceeding from the Frenzied Crowd,
They ran their ladders through a score
Of windows on the Ball Room Floor;
And took Peculiar Pains to Souse
The Pictures up and down the House,
Until Matilda’s Aunt succeeded
In showing them they were not needed;
And even then she had to pay
To get the Men to go away!
It happened that a few Weeks later
Her Aunt was off to the Theatre
To see that Interesting Play
The Second Mrs Tanqueray.
She had refused to take her Niece
To hear this Entertaining Piece:
A Deprivation Just and Wise
To Punish her for Telling Lies.
That Night a Fire did break out-
You should have heard Matilda Shout!
You should have heard her Scream and Bawl,
And throw the window up and call
To People passing in the Street-
(The rapidly increasing Heat
Encouraging her to obtain
Their confidence)-but all in vain!
For every time She shouted ‘Fire!’
They only answered ‘Little Liar’!
And therefore when her Aunt returned,
Matilda, and the House, were Burned.

7. “The Awefull Battle of The Pekes and The Pollicles” by T.S. Eliot

The name T.S. Eliot is typically associated with the complex, often challenging verse of literary modernism. It is perhaps telling, then, that when he composed his only book intended for children, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (1939), he chose to write primarily in rhymed, metrical verse. Perhaps he understood that the academic debates about “poetry” versus “mere versification” wouldn’t impress the discerning ears of children, who readily respond to rhythm and rhyme. Or perhaps he simply wanted to demonstrate his formal skill to those who criticized his modernist leanings. The deliberately archaic title suggests a touch of pure nostalgia, but whatever the motivation, Eliot’s mastery of form is undeniable in poems like “The Awefull Battle of The Pekes and The Pollicles.”

This poem, like many others in the collection that would later form the basis for the musical Cats, showcases Eliot’s ability to use rhythm and rhyme not just correctly, but playfully and dynamically. The use of strong, driving rhythms and percussive rhymes perfectly captures the mock-heroic scale of the dogfight. In contrast, some of his freer verse poems in the same volume tend to fall flat when read aloud, lacking the clear musicality that makes reading traditional forms a pleasure for speaker and listener alike. “The Awefull Battle” is a tour de force of metrical dexterity and humorous observation, proving that even a pioneer of modernism recognized the power and appropriateness of traditional forms when writing for a young, receptive audience. It’s a vibrant example of how form can enhance narrative and character, creating a lively, memorable experience.

(Of) The Awefull Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles (Together with Some Account of the Participation of the Pugs and the Poms, and the Intervention of the Great Rumpuscat)

The Pekes and the Pollicles, everyone knows,
Are proud and implacable passionate foes;
It is always the same, wherever one goes.
And the Pugs and the Poms, although most people say
That they do not like fighting, will often display
Every symptom of wanting to join in the fray.
____And they
__Bark bark bark bark
__Bark bark BARK BARK
Until you can hear them all over the Park.

Now on the occasion of which I shall speak
Almost nothing had happened for nearly a week
(And that’s a long time for a Pol or a Peke).
The big Police Dog was away from his beat—
I don’t know the reason, but most people think
He’d slipped into the Bricklayer’s Arms for a drink—
And no one at all was about on the street
When a Peke and a Pollicle happened to meet.
They did not advance, or exactly retreat,
But they glared at each other and scraped their hind feet,
____And started to
__Bark bark bark bark
__Bark bark BARK BARK
Until you could hear them all over the Park.

Now the Peke, although people may say what they please,
Is no British Dog, but a Heathen Chinese.
And so all the Pekes, when they heard the uproar,
Some came to the window, some came to the door;
There were surely a doyen, more likely a score.
And together they started to grumble and wheeye
In their huffery-snuffery Heathen Chinese.
But a terrible din is what Pollicles like,
for your Pollicle Dog is a dour Yorkshire tyke,
And his braw Scottish cousins are snappers and biters,
And every dog-jack of them notable fighters;
And so they stepped out, with their pipers in order,
Playing When the Blue Bonnets Came Over the Border.
Then the Pugs and the Poms held no longer aloof,
But some from the balcony, some from the roof,
____Joined in
____To the din
____With a
__Bark bark bark bark
__Bark bark BARK BARK
Until you could hear them all over the Park.

Now when these bold heroes together assembled,
The traffic all stopped, and the Underground trembled,
And some of the neighbours were so much afraid
That they started to ring up the Fire Brigade.
When suddenly, up from a small basement flat,
Why who should stalk out but the GREAT RUMPUSCAT.
His eyes were like fireballs fearfully blazing,
He gave a great yawn, and his jaws were amazing;
And when he looked out through the bars of the area,
You never saw anything fiercer or hairier.
And what with the glare of his eyes and his yawning,
The Pekes and the Pollicles quickly took warning.
He looked at the sky and he gave a great leap—
And they every last one of them scattered like sheep.

And when the Police Dog returned to his beat,
There wasn’t a single one left in the street.

These seven poems represent just a small selection of the rich treasury of traditional poetry available for young readers. They demonstrate the power of form – rhyme, meter, rhythm, sound – to create memorable experiences, evoke emotions, and spark imagination in ways that prose often cannot. Introducing children to these works early provides them with a foundation in the musicality and structure of language, fostering a lifelong appreciation for the art of poetry and its unique ability to delight, comfort, challenge, and inspire. Encourage the young readers in your life to listen, read, and discover the enduring magic of these classic verses.