Grown-Up Talk

Katherine Mansfield 1888 (Wellington) – 1923 (Fontainebleau, Île-de-France)



Half-Past-Six and I were talking
In a very grown-up way;
We had got so tired with running
That we did not want to play.

"How do babies come, I wonder,"
He said, looking at the sky,
"Does God mix the things together
An' just make it-like a pie?"

I was really not quite certain,
But it sounded very nice;
It was all that we could think of,
Besides a book said "sugar and spice."

Half-Past-Six said--He's so clever--
Cleverer than me, I mean...
"I suppose God makes the black ones
When the saucepan isn't clean."

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

29 sec read
89

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABAB CDCD XEXE CFXF
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 502
Words 101
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4

Katherine Mansfield

Katherine Mansfield Beauchamp Murry was a prominent modernist writer of short fiction who was born and brought up in colonial New Zealand and wrote under the pen name of Katherine Mansfield. more…

All Katherine Mansfield poems | Katherine Mansfield Books

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