Mary had a little lamb

Its fleece was white as snow

And everywhere that Mary went
The lamb was sure to go
It followed her to school one day
Which was against the rule
It made the children laugh and play
To see a lamb at school

"ENG.LIT. and a bit"

by e.j.ward

2.

A smallê lamb did little Marye have

In woolles softe and white it was y'clad
On each and allè day she forth did go
With its deere mistresse it this journay made

When she to schoolè went so lamb also

Did followe, which did rulès contravene
And allè childer laughen and singen
For ne'er before was lamb in schoolè seen.

3.

Och wheer is your lamb deere Marye my childe?

Och wheer is your lamb my maiden so deer?
My lamb is with me Mither dinna greet so
For he's always behind me wherever I go.

But to schoole ye did gae deere Marye my child

To schoole ye did gae my maiden sae deere
Och he followed me there Mither dinna greet so
For the bairns run to meet us wherever we go.
 4.

Being your lamb how could I sweeten time

Made bitter by my absence from your side
But must I follow from the sun's first climb
To his last breath, and still with you abide.
A hundred days have passed since first you led
My stumbling feet towards your gentle smile
A thousand golden moments since you fed
Me first and stroked me all the while.
So do not chide when I must linger too
In your sad footsteps wandering to school
Heed not your playmates' laughter when they view
The sight of my dear Mistress and her fool
Wherever trees may bend to form your roof
There I in love must place my wanton hoof.

5.

Once more mild creature from th'Arcadian groves

Whom God's sweet hand hath dressed in splendour white
Follow your Mistress who to battle goes
Clad in the dreadful armoury of Right.
The clamouring voices of Life's shrill-tongued school
Discordant sound, to strike our souls with fear,
But still triumphant we'll in splendour rule
Satan's barbarous armies always near

6.

No lady but with flatterers would be seen

Whose sweet-tongued admiration makes her preen
But doubting the fixed affections of a man
Our Mary hath procured herself a lamb.
And as to rustic school she treads her path
The lamb in sweet surrender follows too
Making the children clap their hands and laugh
To see what sums so small a beast could do.
 7.

But Oh fresh innocence of driven snow

Whose pastoral delights in hillsides green
Lend to the child you follow to and fro
The sacred rapture of a childhood dream,
A dream that's with me still as dull I go
Roving the vernal pathways back to school
And give me pleasure when the hours tread slow
Of memories of trees and moorland pool.

8.

O fleece-white
Wool-bright
Sweetly-walking hooves
That move
Lightly
Keep in sight and sweeten
Life's green gales
In laughter
Softer
Sweeter than before.
Keep treading lightly after
Softer spreading
Blow green gales of laughter
And so follow brook-blown leaves
Where bold-berry boys in brown studies sit
And knit
Scholastic stratagems to flit,
Twit
And quite outwit their master.
Faster follow faster where laughter flows
And fleecy goes to whiten those
Flock-winking pastures.
 9.

Mary was a tall girl

What you might call perpendicular
So I suppose that it was only natural
That she should choose a small and fleecy bundle
To dandle in her arms.

She called it Atalanta

(Which is after all a name)
And this became
A soft and snow-curled centre
To the steel-grey framework of her life.

School went on as usual

(Schools usually do)
And Mary and Atalanta came and went
In week-day woollens and grey gabardines
Doing their Maths homework on Wednesdays
While on Sunday afternoons they sat in the garden.

And so, white wool and grey,

They knit the endless pattern of their lives together
Studying herbaceous borders and Mathematics.

10.

There was a young person called Mary

Who kept a small lamb in the dairy
When she went off to school
The lamb followed too
And came top in French Vocabulary
 CRIB SHEET FOR MARY AND HER LAMB

"ENG.LIT. and a Bit": Which poet wrote which?

JOHN MILTON
ALEXANDER POPE
ROBERT BURNS
TRADITIONAL (Limerick)
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
GERARD MANLEY-HOPKINS
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
T.S. ELIOT

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(copyright e.j.ward 2021)