Eleanor Farjeon

Cats sleep, anywhere,
Any table, any chair
Top of piano, window-ledge,
In the middle, on the edge,
Open drawer, empty shoe,
Anybody's lap will do,
Fitted in a cardboard box,
In the cupboard, with your frocks-
Anywhere! They don't care!
Cats sleep anywhere.
...

What worlds of wonder are our books!
As one opens them and looks,
New ideas and people rise
In our fancies and our eyes.
...

I quarreled with my brother,
I don't know what about,
One thing led to another
And somehow we fell out.
...

He's nothing much but fur
And two round eyes of blue,
He has a giant purr
And a midget mew.
...

There isn't time, there isn't time
To do the things I want to do,
With all the mountain-tops to climb,
...

John, John, bad King John
Shamed the throne that he sat on;
Not a scruple, not a straw,
...

The sounds in the evening
Go all through the house,
The click of the clock
...

Five minutes, five minutes more, please!
Let me stay five minutes more!
Can't I just finish the castle
I'm building here on the floor?
...

I'll tell you, shall I, something I remember?
Something that still means a great deal to me.
It was long ago.
...

What is Poetry? Who knows?
Not a rose, but the scent of the rose;
Not the sky, but the light in the sky;
...

Morning has broken,
Like the first morning,
Blackbird has spoken
...

Cat!
Atter her, atter her,
Sleeky flatterer,
Spitfire chatterer,
Scatter her, scatter her
...

I am as awful as my brother War,
I am the sudden silence after clamour.
I am the face that shows the seamy scar
When blood and frenzy has lost its glamour.
...

Count the white horses you meet on the way,
Count the white horses, child day after day,
Keep a wish ready for wishing - if you
Wish on the ninth horse, your wish will come true.
...

THE frost of the moon fell over my floor
And six green singers stood at my door.

'What do ye here that music make?'
'Let us come in for Christ's sweet Sake.'
...

In a far land upon a day,
Where never snow did fall,
Three kings went riding on the way
Bearing presents all.
...

The night will never stay,
The night will still go by,
Though with a million stars
...

In the last letter that I had from France
You thanked me for the silver Easter egg
Which I had hidden in the box of apples
...

When Joy and Molly on the lawn
Danced bare of foot like spirits of dawn
Jessica watched in wonderment
...

The Shepherd and the King,
The Angel and the ****,
They heard Sweet Mary sing,
...