Songs of Education

Another G. K. Chesterton poem:

____SONGS OF EDUCATION

_________III. FOR THE CRECHE

______Form 8277059, Sub-Section K

I remember my mother, the day that we met,
A thing I shall never entirely forget;
And I toy with the fancy that, young as I am,
I should know her again if we met in a tram.
__But mother is happy in turning a crank
__That increases the balance at somebody's bank;
__And I feel satisfaction that mother is free
__From the sinister task of attending to me.

They have brightened our room, that is spacious and cool,
With diagrams used in the Idiot School,
And books for the blind that will teach us to see;
But mother is happy, for mother is free.
__For mother is dancing up forty-eight floors.
__For love of the Leeds International Stores,
__And the flame of that faith might perhaps have grown cold,
__With the care of a baby of seven weeks old.

For mother is happy in greasing a wheel
For somebody else, who is cornering Steel;
And though our one meeting was not very long,
She took the occasion to sing me this song:
__'O, hush thee, my baby, the time will soon come
__When thy sleep will be broken with hooting and hum;
__There are handles want turning and turning all day,
__And knobs to be pressed in the usual way;

O hush thee, my baby, take rest while I croon,
For Progress comes early, and Freedom too soon.'

G. K. Chesterton

New Witness, 25 July, 1919