Poems of childhood — Key Ideas to Explore

Diction and Invented Words

Field frequently coins or adapts words to mimic childlike speech or to create a whimsical atmosphere. In 'The Dinkey-Bird,' the title itself is an invention, and the poem features a 'dinkey-bird' that sings 'in the amfalula tree.' Such nonsense terms appear throughout: 'Luddy-Dud,' 'Googly-Goo,' and 'Shuffle-Shoon and Amber-Locks' are character names that prioritize sound over sense. This lexical playfulness extends to lullabies like 'Little Blue Pigeon,' where the refrain 'Hush-a-by, my little pigeon' uses a diminutive to soften the address. Field also employs dialect or colloquial contractions—'cunnin’ little thing,' 'jest ’fore Christmas'—to ground the poems in a specific, informal American voice. These choices suggest an authorial interest in capturing the rhythm and vocabulary of domestic speech rather than formal poetic diction.

Dialogue and Direct Address

Many poems are structured around a speaker directly addressing a child or an imagined listener. In 'Booh!,' the father narrates the game in present tense, creating a sense of immediacy: 'Sometimes the rascal tries to make believe that he is scared.' The child's response is quoted: 'he bids me “do it all aden!”' This inclusion of the child's imperfect speech adds authenticity. 'The Night Wind' uses a question-and-answer format: the speaker asks the wind 'Whom do you want, O lonely night?' and the wind replies with a drawn-out 'Yoooooooo.' The poem then shifts to a memory of the mother's explanation, blending dialogue with narrative. In 'Kissing Time,' the speaker addresses the lark, bee, and winds directly, personifying nature as participants in a daily ritual. This technique gives the poems a theatrical quality, as if the reader overhears a private conversation.

Description of Domestic and Natural Settings

Field's descriptions often blend the domestic with the fantastical. 'Garden and Cradle' parallels a baby's walk in the garden with his swinging in the cradle: 'The posies they are good to him, / And bow them as they should to him.' The garden is a courtly space where nature defers to the child. In 'The Sugar-Plum Tree,' the setting is a dreamlike orchard where 'you can gather the fruit in a shower.' Conversely, 'The Night Wind' uses the domestic bedroom as a site of fear: 'With the blankets pulled up round my head.' The wind's moan is described as 'pitiful' and 'ghostly,' contrasting with the cozy interior. 'The Rock-a-By Lady' introduces a supernatural figure who 'comes stealing; comes creeping' from 'Hushaby street,' merging the familiar (a lullaby) with the eerie. These settings oscillate between safety and unease, reflecting childhood's emotional range.

Recurring Motifs and Structural Patterns

Several motifs recur across the collection: lullabies, bedtime, and the transition from wakefulness to sleep. Poems like 'Wynken, Blynken and Nod,' 'The Shut-Eye Train,' and 'Hushaby, Sweet my Own' use rhythmic repetition and soothing imagery to induce drowsiness. The phrase 'rock-a-by' appears in multiple titles, linking the poems to the traditional cradle-rocking motion. Another pattern is the use of cumulative or circular structures: 'Booh!' ends by anticipating the time when the game will no longer be played, while 'The Night Wind' returns to the wind's cry after each stanza. Field also employs refrains—'Yoooooooo' in 'The Night Wind,' 'half-past kissing time' in 'Kissing Time'—to create a musical, incantatory effect. These structural choices emphasize ritual and repetition, mirroring the routines of childhood.

Field's poems reward attention to the specific words and rhythms he chooses—the nonsense names, the repeated sounds, the shifts between adult and child voices. The excerpts show a poet who treats childhood as a distinct linguistic world, complete with its own logic and fears. Readers may find it useful to compare the lullabies with the more narrative poems to see how Field varies his approach. The illustrations by Maxfield Parrish, though not analyzed here, add another layer of visual interpretation to the text.

I found myself humming one of Eugene Field’s lullabies, with its made-up words and gentle rocking rhythm, and it reminded me how comfort can hide within strange sounds. That same feeling surfaced later when I revisited The Poems of John Donne, Volume 2 (of 2) Edited from the Old Editions and Numerous Manuscripts — Inside the Classic—his wordplay feels less playful, but no less tender in its own searching way.