As comfortable as a cotton dress

Poetry month, Day 29: I love Eleanor Farjeon's poetry and I bet you will too--that is if a little cat hasn't already whispered its worth into your ear.

A Morning Song
For the First Day of Spring

Morning has broken
like the first morning,
Blackbird has spoken
   Like the first bird.
Praise for the singing!
Praise for the morning!
Praise for them, springing
   From the first Word.

Sweet the rain's new fall
Sunlit from heaven,
Like the first dewfall
   In the first hour.
Praise for the sweetness
Of the wet garden,
Sprung in completeness
   From the first shower.

Mine is the sunlight!
Mine is the morning
Born of the one light
   Eden saw play.
Praise with elation,
Praise every morning
Spring's re-creation
   Of the First Day!


Pencil and Paint
Winter has a pencil
For pictures clear and neat,
She traces the black tree-tops
Upon a snowy sheet.
But autumn has a palette
And a painting brush instead,
And daubs the leaves for pleasure
With yellow, brown, and red.


Cotton
My wedding-gown's cotton,
My wedding-gown's cheap,
It's crisper than sea foam
And whiter than sheep,
Printed with daisies
In yellow and green,
A prettier wedding-gown
Never was seen!
Light-heart and light-foot
I'll walk into church
As straight and as slim
As a silvery birch,
And after my wedding
I never will lay
Like ladies my wedding-gown
Lightly away.

I'll wash it in soapsuds
As fresh as when new,
And rinse it in rainwater
Softer than dew,
And peg it on Saturdays
High on the line,
And wear it on Sundays
Full of sunshine.
My wedding-gown's cotton,
It cost me a crown,
Was ever girl wed in
A commoner gown?--
As birds on the branches,
As flowers on the green,
The commonest wedding-gown
Ever was seen!

--Eleanor Farjeon

from Something I Remember: Selected Poems for Young Children by Eleanor Farjeon. Edited byAnne Harvey. Blackie, 1987.