Knee ride
Father and Mother and Uncle Dan
All rode to market upon a white ram.
Off fell father, and off fell mother,
And away rode uncle Dan.
Kite
I often sit and wish that I,
Could be a kite up in the sky.
And ride upon the breeze and go,
Whatever way I chanced to blow.
Then I could look beyond the town,
And see the river winding down.
And follow all the ships that sail,
Like me, before the merry gale.
Until at last with them I came,
To some place with a foreign name.
King Pippin
King Pippin built a fine new hall,
Pastry and piecrust were the wall.
Windows made of black pudding and white,
Slates were pancakes, you never saw the like.
King Boggen
King Boggen, he built a fine new hall;
Pastry and piecrust, that was the wall;
The windows were made of black pudding and white,
Roofed with pancakes - you never saw the like.
Keepsake mill
Over the borders, a sin without pardon,
Breaking the branches and crawling below,
Out through the breach in the wall of the garden,
Down by the banks of the river we go.
Here is a mill with the humming of thunder,
Here is the weir with the wonder of foam,
Here is the sluice with the race running under
Marvellous places, though handy to home!
Sounds of the village grow stiller and stiller,
Stiller the note of the birds on the hill;
Dusty and dim are the eyes of the miller,
Deaf are his ears with the moil of the mill.
Years may go by, and the wheel in the river
Wheel as it wheels for us, children, to-day,
Wheel and keep roaring and foaming for ever
Long after all of the boys are away.
Home for the Indies and home from the ocean,
Heroes and soldiers we all will come home;
Still we shall find the old mill wheel in motion,
Turning and churning that river to foam.
You with the bean that I gave when we quarrelled,
I with your marble of Saturday last,
Honoured and old and all gaily apparelled,
Here we shall meet and remember the past.
The King of France
The King of France went up the hill,
With twenty thousand men;
The King of France came down the hill,
And ne’er went up again.
The Kilkenny cats
There were once two cats of Kilkenny.
Each thought there was one cat too many;
So they fought and they fit,
And they scratched and they bit,
Till, excepting their nails,
And the tips of their tails,
Instead of two cats, there weren’t any.