Elfin Songs of Sunland

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ELFIN SONGS OF SUNLAND BY CHARLES KEELER

DECORATIONS BY LOUISE KEELER FOURTH EDITION

LIVE OAK PUBLISHING COMPANY Berkeley California

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Copyright 1904 by CHARLES KEELER Copyright 1904 by CHARLES KEELER (For Second Edition) Copyright 1914 by CHARLES KEELER (For Third Edition) Copyright 1920 by CHARLES KEELER (For Fourth Edition) Decorations by LOUISE KEELER

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DEDICATION

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NAMES OF THE SONGS

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A RING AROUND OF PLAYTIME

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Elfin Songs of Sunland

COME AWAY CHILDREN

COME away children, frisk along with me, For I’ll be the piper and merry will we be; With laughter and dancing and sports to make us gay, O there’s sunshine and there’s singing—come away, come away!

Come away children, leave the town behind; Follow me to Happy-land and see what we shall find, Where the flowers smile to see you and the birdies trill and play Just because the sun is shining—come away, come away!

Come away children, I’ll pipe an elfin tune And we’ll play that we are fairies dancing in the summer moon; We’ll pretend that we are flowers in the carnival of May If you’ll join the merry crew and come away, come away!

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HAND-ORGAN MAN

HAND-ORGAN MAN, O hand-organ man, Grind out the music as fast as you can, With a tum-turi tum-turi hippity hay, And a red-coated monkey to frolic and play.

The organ rings merrily on down the street, And the very policeman steps out to your beat, When, sucking her stick of molasses, comes Jennie To give that impertinent monkey a penny.

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O toodle de toodle de, hand-organ grinder, No man in the city to children is kinder, And my little kid brother just played not to care When the monkey jumped on him and grabbed at his hair.

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POPPING CORN

COME, you merry little fellows, Poke the coals and blow the bellows; Here’s the popper, shell the corn, And let it pop this winter morn.

Pop-a-tee-pop-pop-pop! See the kernels skip and hop, See them puff out full and white, Hear them crackle in affright.

Now shake, shake, shake, Till your hands and faces bake; Tip it, turn it, Or you’ll burn it, And a dreadful muss you’ll make.

[Pg 6] Now it’s done we’ll have a feast; Smallest hands must take the least! Hot and crisp and white and sweet,— Isn’t this a jolly treat!

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THE BAKER MAN

O WHO do you think is the baker man, And how do you think he makes his cake? He mixes his dough in an old tin can And puts it out in the sun to bake. He pats pats pats at his little mud pies; He rounds them and rolls them and looks so wise.

The baker man is my brother Ned, And out in the garden he’s working away, Right by the scarlet geranium bed, And his hands and his face are just covered with clay, As he pats pats pats at his little mud pies; [Pg 8] As he rounds them and rolls them and looks so wise.

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TOPS

HOW would you like to be a top, To be made to spin till you couldn’t stop;— To be pitched head first from a coil of string, To be made to dance till you sigh and swing?

There’s the top that is whipped and the top with a peg That gouges its brother and leaves him to beg; There’s the musical top with holes in its side, That is said to have played till it fell down and died.

[Pg 10] But of all the tops that ever were spun, The biggest are those of the old daddy Sun; And I’ll wager he has just the jolliest sport With the Earth and with Saturn and tops of that sort.

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THE KITE

BLOW, wind, blow, wind, Fly, kite, fly! On and on you go, wind, Up, kite, high!

Out sweeps your tail, kite, Tug on the string; Far away you sail, kite, Proudly you swing.

If I were like you, kite, One white wing, With nothing else to do, kite, But tug upon the string.

[Pg 12] I’d sail up from town, kite, To see the moon’s back, And then slide down, kite, The Milky-Way’s track.

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