Grace's Rhyme - Casual

Blad The Inspirer

New Member
A couple of years ago I though it would be fun to try making a children's book. I wrote the text for it pretty quickly, but still haven't got around to the illustrations. I figured there would be four lines per page, and the illustrations would become more vivid and colorful as the main character continues on her journey. The structure is modeled after Bilbo's Earendil poem, but the rhyme scheme changes and becomes more complex as the story continues. I was hoping that even after the kids fall asleep their parents could keep reading the story. I also thought that as the kids get older they could start to understand the story more and more.

I have never done anything like this before, and I don't have any serious ambitions here, but I feel like I can take biting criticism, so there is no need to go easy on me. I had considered the Macduff setting, but didn't want people to spend too much of their time on my amateur little poem.

There was a time when here there sat
a girl along her mother’s side,
who said she wouldn’t eat her lunch;
Not even for a lovely prize.
Her mother said she couldn’t take
another minute of this girl,
for she engaged in silliness
and all she said had seemed absurd.
At last her mother left her chair
and raised her hands above her head.
“You sit here till you eat your lunch!”
she cried, and left her daughter then.

The daughter sitting in her chair,
saw on her plate amazing things,
like tiny trees and little sheep,
and shining cars with glowing rings.
And through her window then she saw
that all those things were really there.
She opened up the window and
flew down to meet them through the air.
And through the trees she saw there came
an elephant with giant claws,
with penguins taller than the trees
and golden fish with tiny paws.

But then she rose far up above
her home that lay there far below.
Her mother she was thinking of,
but she would have to let her go.
And farther now again she rose
through clouds of many different hues,
enchanting birds that licked her toes
and faeries that could read the news.

But she was rising faster now,
and all the sky was filled with stars.
Upon the moon there stood a cow,
and shining light had spilled on Mars.
She met the creatures living there,
and though she couldn’t see their eyes,
She felt that she could linger there;
Could eat their food and hear their cries.

For long she tarried there until
she felt the need to see her mom,
as though the girl could hear her will,
and know she’d linger here too long.

She raced down through the endless night
and found her sight was keen as air.
She saw her lovely house below
but found it slow to reach her there.
For now there came a blinding wind,
that climbing into limb and lung,
exposed her spirit to the bone,
entombed below a dimming sun.

But flying came the elephant,
and elegantly faeries came.
With birds and Martians she went down,
and here she found the forest tame.

They sat her down upon a tree,
and from the sea they brought a gown
as smooth as glass and green and blue.
They cleaned her shoes and set her crown.

Her hair was shorn and ebony,
a canopy above her head.
Continuing through dead of night,
she shed a light as home she sped.

Now shimmering upon the glass
beyond her fastly sleeping home,
she saw her face reflected there;
Detected there a weeping form.

For deep within the room there sat
her mother aged with lines of care,
with years of sadness on her brow
and strands of grey throughout her hair.

Though now the girl began to wail,
her echo failed to span the space;
Through generations lost to time,
the cost to find her honored place.

Her mother slowly left her chair
and slowly walked around the room.
She couldn’t see her daughter there,
but silently she pierced the gloom.

And then the daughter turned to see
a churning sea of golden fish;
Of elephants and Martians small
and penguins tall upheld her wish.

For then the daughter caught a glimpse
of sprawling prints about the place.
The mother’s hand had drawn the worlds
that spawned the girl’s unbounded grace.

The mother came and pressed her hand,
bereft of band, upon the glass.
A light there from the creatures came,
the daughter’s frame enthroned at last.

Now here was their reunion brief.
A union’s grief is happy still.
Through sadness dull but never cold,
a mother’s role had been fulfilled.

But now the mother comes and goes,
and thumbs her nose at all who ask.
Her smile does not repeal her grief,
her tears a brief and falling task.

Her daughter destined now to go
beyond her woe, through space and time;
And orbéd star without a rest,
the boundlessness of Grace’s Rhyme.
 
My word!!! Your rhyme is not heavy! I have seen plenty of people use sickly rhyme to make something "for children", but it was just awful - you've done it very nicely.

Now - tell us what age of child you are thinking of for this? Some heavy stuff, some light stuff, some kids will get far more of it than I did!
 
Back
Top