For Children Of All Ages

I think of nursery rhymes as pleasant ditties that one recites to children in order to keep them entertained on an idle afternoon or to lull them to sleep at night.  Thus, I find the subject matter of some of the poems in Christina Rossetti's Sing-Song: A Nursery Rhyme Book to be a bit eccentric.  For instance, ten poems into the collection one comes across this:

Dead in the cold, a song-singing thrush,
Dead at the foot of a snowberry bush, --
Weave him a coffin of rush,
Dig him a grave where the soft mosses grow,
Raise him a tombstone of snow.

Christina Rossetti, Sing-Song: A Nursery Rhyme Book (1872).

A few poems later, one finds this:

A baby's cradle with no baby in it,
     A baby's grave where autumn leaves drop sere;
The sweet soul gathered home to Paradise,
     The body waiting here.

Ibid.

My knowledge of children's literature is negligible, but I do know that fairy tales can sometimes be frightening, or have dark subtexts.  Perhaps the same is true of nursery rhymes.  I don't know.  But I can't imagine reading either of these poems to a child as he or she nods off to sleep.

Charles Oppenheimer, "The Old Tolbooth, Kirkcudbright" (1931)

However, I will say this:  although the subject matter of the two poems may make them odd "nursery rhymes," there is no denying that they are lovely poems in and of themselves.  And for this I give Rossetti a great deal of credit:  she does not alter her poetic style in a way that patronizes children. She does not resort to baby-talk.  If one were to encounter the poems outside of a book of "nursery rhymes," it would not be apparent that they were written for children.

Here is another example:

Why did baby die,
Making Father sigh,
Mother cry?

Flowers, that bloom to die,
Make no reply
Of "why?"
But bow and die.

Ibid.

The first stanza is perhaps sing-songy (making due allowance for the appearance of death, of course), but the second stanza would be right at home in any number of "adult" poems written by Rossetti.  (The lines also sound like something that Robert Herrick might have written.)

Charles Oppenheimer, "Kirkcudbright under Snow" (1934)

How often does Charon, the ferryman who bears souls to Hades across the rivers Styx and Acheron, appear in nursery rhymes?

"Ferry me across the water,
     Do, boatman, do."
"If you've a penny in your purse
     I'll ferry you."

"I have a penny in my purse,
     And my eyes are blue;
So ferry me across the water,
     Do, boatman, do."

"Step into my ferry-boat,
     Be they black or blue,
And for the penny in your purse
     I'll ferry you."

Ibid.

According to tradition, Charon requires a penny in payment for his services.  A poem by A. E. Housman comes to mind.

Crossing alone the nighted ferry
     With the one coin for fee,
Whom, on the far quayside in waiting,
     Count you to find?  not me.

The fond lackey to fetch and carry,
     The true, sick-hearted slave,
Expect him not in the just city
     And free land of the grave.

A. E. Housman, More Poems (1936).

Which is the nursery rhyme and which is the "adult" poem?

Charles Oppenheimer, "From a Tower, Kirkcudbright"

As I have noted on prior occasions, Rossetti was deeply religious, and a great deal of her poetry consists of devotional verse which is intended to instruct and enlighten, and to provide solace.  I suspect that she intended her nursery rhymes to serve the same ends.  She may have believed that mortality is something that children as well as adults ought to face up to. Seems reasonable to me.

What are heavy?  sea-sand and sorrow:
What are brief?  today and tomorrow:
What are frail?  Spring blossoms and youth:
What are deep?  the ocean and truth.

Christina Rossetti, Sing-Song: A Nursery Rhyme Book.

Charles Oppenheimer, "My Garden at Twilight"