THE SUGAR-PLUM TREE
by: Eugene Field (1850-1895)
- AVE you
ever heard of the Sugar-Plum Tree?
- 'T is a marvel of great renown!
- It blooms on the shore of the Lollipop sea
- In the garden of Shut-Eye Town;
- The fruit that it bears is so wondrously sweet
- (As those who have tasted it say)
- That good little children have only to eat
- Of that fruit to be happy next day.
-
- When you 've got to the tree, you would have a hard time
- To capture the fruit which I sing;
- The tree is so tall that no person could climb
- To the boughs where the sugar-plums swing!
- But up in that tree sits a chocolate cat,
- And a gingerbread dog prowls below--
- And this is the way you contrive to get at
- Those sugar-plums tempting you so:
-
- You say but the word to that gingerbread dog
- And he barks with such terrible zest
- That the chocolate cat is at once all agog,
- As her swelling proportions attest.
- And the chocolate cat goes cavorting around
- From this leafy limb unto that,
- And the sugar-plums tumble, of course, to the ground--
- Hurrah for that chocolate cat!
-
- There are marshmallows, gumdrops, and peppermint canes,
- With stripings of scarlet or gold,
- And you carry away of the treasure that rains
- As much as your apron can hold!
- So come, little child, cuddle closer to me
- In your dainty white nightcap and gown,
- And I 'll rock you away to that Sugar-Plum Tree
- In the garden of Shut-Eye Town.
"The Sugar-Plum Tree"
is reprinted from Poems of Childhood. Eugene Field. New
York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1904. |
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POEMS BY EUGENE FIELD |
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