Three Young Rats and Other Rhymes

Alexander Calder, James J. Sweeney

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9780486137346
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Artist Monographs

Best known as the creator of the mobile, Alexander Calder turned his extraordinary talents in a variety of directions. Nowhere is his exuberant imagination more apparent than in this captivating collection of line drawings. Rhymes from Mother Goose and other classic sources provide the inspiration for Calder's eighty-five distinctive illustrations.
Originally published in 1944, this compilation of the artist's frank depictions of nudes adds a decidedly adult cast, as well as a new depth and resonance, to a host of familiar chants and verses. James Johnson Sweeney, who selected the verses, contributes an insightful Introduction. His scholarly study of the significance of the nursery rhyme tradition corresponds in wit and subtlety to the expressive brilliance of Calder's drawings.

THREE YOUNG RATS

AND OTHER RHYMES

OPEN the door and let me through!
Not without your buff and blue.
Here’s my buff and there’s my blue.
Open the door and let me through!

THREE young rats with black felt hats,
Three young ducks with white straw flats,
Three young dogs with curling tails,
Three young cats with demi-veils,
Went out to walk with two young pigs
In satin vests and sorrel wigs;
But suddenly it chanced to rain,
And so they all went home again.

GOD made the bees,
And the bees make honey.

The miller’s man does all the work,
But the miller makes the money.

THERE are men in the village of Erith
Whom nobody seeth or heareth,
And there looms, on the marge
Of the river, a barge
That nobody roweth or steereth.

UNDER the umbrageous umbrella trees
Easily the elephant eats at his ease;
The horn of the hunter is heard on the hill
And the hounds are a-barking in harmony shrill.

I HAVE a little cough, sir,
In my little chest, sir,
Every time I cough, sir,
It leaves a little pain, sir,
Cough, cough, cough, cough,
There it is again, sir.

THREE little children sitting on the sand,
All, all a-lonely,
Three little children sitting on the sand,
All, all a-lonely,
Down in the green wood shady—
There came an old woman, said Come on with me,
All, all a-lonely,
There came an old woman, said Come on with me,
All, all a-lonely,
Down in the green wood shady—
She stuck her pen-knife through their heart,
All, all a-lonely,
She stuck her pen-knife through their heart,
All, all a-lonely,
Down in the green wood shady.

THERE was a piper had a cow
And had no hay to give her.
He played a tune upon his pipes,
“Consider, old cow, consider”!

That old cow considered well
And promised her master money
Only to play that other tune,
“Corn-rigs are bonny.”

GREAT A, little a,
Bouncing B,
The cat’s in the cupboard,
And she can’t see me.

I AM Queen Anne, of whom ’tis said,
I’m chiefly famed for being dead.
Queen Anne, Queen Anne, she sits in the sun,
As fair as a lily, as brown as a bun.

ON Paul’s Cathedral grows a tree
As full of apples as can be.
The little boys of London Town
They come with hooks to pull them down.
Then they run from hedge to hedge,
Until they come to London Bridge.

MISTY-MOISTY was the morn,
Chilly was the weather;
There I met an old man
Dressed all in leather,

Dressed all in leather
Against the wind and rain,
With “how do you do?” and “how do you do?”
And “how do you do?” again.

PETER WHITE will ne’er go r...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• THREE YOUNG RATS - AND OTHER RHYMES
• Index of First Lines