Poetry Friday - When I was Very Young

Personal Journeys Through A.A. Milne's Poetry
When I was very young, I was presented with two slim volumes of poetry by A.A. Milne by a maiden cousin I called, Aunt Charlotte.

She was very much like Gone With The Wind's Aunt Pittipat and she was very sweet to me.

The volumes were. When I Was Very Young and Now We Are Six. They represent the poetry inspired by A.A. Milne's son, Christopher Robin, and his friends.

Nearly 50 years after the gift, I still reread the poetry; they strike a chord with me. At the time they were written, they reflected childhood innocence and introspection. Most of the poems are deceptive as they are far more sophisticated than one would expect.

In my future posts, I'll share something personal connected to one of the poems.

Today, I think I'll start with one of his lesser-known poems, but one that describes the idyllic weeks I spent at my Aunt Hopie's (Charlotte's sister) summer home, Cove Cottage at Gloucester Banks, on the banks of the York River in Virginia. My father and I used to go down to the beach (the river is an estuary and we were very near Chesapeake Bay, so there was a beach) to take walks and gather crabs and clams. The wind could be fierce and I remember seeing whitecaps on the water.

Aunt Charlotte had inscribed a personal message on the page of this poem:

Sand Between the Toes

I went down to the shouting sea,
Taking Christopher down with me,
For Nurse had given us sixpence each-
And down we went to the beach.

We had sand in the eyes and the ears and the nose,
And sand in the hair, and sand-between-the-toes.
Whenever a good nor'wester blows,
Christopher is certain of
Sand-between-the-toes.


The sea was galloping grey and white;
Christopher clutched his sixpence tight;
We clambered over the humping sand-
And Christopher held my hand.

We had sand in the eyes and the ears and the nose,
And sand in the hair, and sand-between-the-toes.
Whenever a good nor'wester blows,
Christopher is certain of
Sand-between-the-toes.


There was a roaring in the sky;
The sea-gulls cried as they blew by;
We tried to talk, but had to shout-
Nobody else was out.

When we got home, we had sand in the hair,
In the eyes and the ears and everywhere;
Whenever a good nor'wester blows,
Christopher is found with
Sand-between-the-toes.


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