Songs and Other Verse

Eugene Field wrote the verses American children have memorized for generations, and this collection gathers his most beloved work in one place. Here you'll find 'Wynken, Blynken, and Nod,' the dreamy counting poem that has lulled countless little ones to sleep, alongside 'Little Boy Blue' and other tender portraits of childhood that manage to be both playful and achingly nostalgic. Field had a gift for capturing the logic and magic of a child's world: the pretend-seriousness of play, the way adults seem both familiar and strange, the particular quality of afternoon light in a meadow. But he wasn't only a children's poet. The collection also includes his witty, occasionally mischievous verses for adults, where humor and sentiment intertwine without becoming saccharine. Written in the late nineteenth century but feeling timeless, these poems read as if spoken directly to a child curled up nearby, their rhythm as natural as a heartbeat. They endure because Field understood something essential: that the games children play and the dreams they dream are not separate from 'real' poetry but are poetry at its most essential.