Menella Bute Smedley (Менелла Бьют Смедли)
A Boy’s Aspiration
I was four yesterday: when I'm quite old, I'll have a cricket-ball made of pure gold; I'll carve the roast meat, and help soup and fish; I'll get my feet wet whenever I wish; I'll never go to bed till twelve o'clock; I'll make a mud pie in a clean frock; I'll whip the naughty boys with a new birch; I'll take my guinea-pig always to church; I'll spend a hundred pounds every day; I'll have the alphabet quite done away; I'll have a parrot without a sharp beak; I'll see a pantomime six times a week; I'll have a rose-tree, always in bloom; I'll keep a dancing bear in Mamma's room; I'll spoil my best clothes, and not care a pin; I'll have no visitors ever let in; I'll go at liberty up stairs or down; I'll pin a dish-cloth to the cook's gown; I'll light the candles, and ring the big bell; I'll smoke Papa's pipe, feeling quite well; I'll have a ball of string fifty miles long; I'll have a whistle as loud as the gong; I'll scold the housemaid for “making a dirt;” I'll cut my fingers without being hurt; I'll have my pinafores quite loose and nice; I'll wear great fishing-boots, like Captain Price; I'll have a pot of beer at the girls' tea; I'll have John taught to say “Thank you” to me; I'll never stand up to show that I'm grown; No one shall say to me, “Don't throw a stone!” I'll drop my butter'd toast on the new chintz; I'll have no governess, giving her hints! I'll have a nursery up in the stars; I'll lean through windows without any bars; I'll sail without my nurse in a big boat; I'll have no comforters tied round my throat; I'll have a language with not a word spell'd; I'll ride on horseback without being held; I'll hear Mamma say, “My boy, good as gold!” When I'm a grown-up man, sixty years old.
Menella Bute Smedley’s other poems:
