Tom Noddy

The angel Gabriel.

Soon after daybreak next morning we were steaming down the arrowy Rhone at the rate of twenty miles an hour in a very dirty vessel full of merchandise, and with only three or four other passengers for our companions, among whom the most remarkable was a silly old, meek-faced, garlic-eating, immeasurably polite chevalier, with a dirty scrap of red ribbon hanging at his buttonhole, as if he had tied it there to remind himself of something, as Tom Noddy in the farce ties knots in his pocket handkerchief.

For the last two days we had seen great sullen hills, the first indications of the Alp towering in the distance.

Now we were rushing on beside them, sometimes close beside them, sometimes with an intervening slope covered with vineyards.

Tit for Tat by Walter de la Mare.

Read for LibriVox.org. Have you been catching of fish, Tom Noddy, Have you snared a weeping hare, Have you whistled "No nunny," And gunned a poor bunny Or a blinded bird of the air? Have you trot like a murderer Through the green woods, Through the dewy deep dingles and glooms, While every small creature screamed shrill To Dame Nature, "He comes! And he comes!" Wonder I very much do, Tom Noddy, If ever, when you are a-roam, An ogre from space Will stoop a lean face And lug you home.

Lug you home over his fence, Tom Noddy, Of thorn stalks nine yards high, With your bent knees strung Round his old iron gun And your head dandangling by.

And hang you up stiff on a hook, Tom Noddy, From a stone-cold pantry shelf, Whence your eyes will glare In an empty stare Till you are cooked yourself.

End of poem.

This recording is in the public domain.