A Song About Myself

by John Keats

  


A Song About Myself is quite different from Walt Whitman's Song of Myself. Keats' simple rhyming scheme is playful and fresh, about himself as a "naughty boy" who runs away.
A Song About MyselfJ. Severn, Young John Keats wood engraving, 1819

  I. There was a naughty boy, A naughty boy was he, He would not stop at home, He could not quiet be He took In his knapsack A book Full of vowels And a shirt With some towels, A slight cap For night cap, A hair brush, Comb ditto, New stockings For old ones Would split O! This knapsack Tight at's back He rivetted close And followed his nose To the north, To the north, And follow'd his nose To the north. II. There was a naughty boy And a naughty boy was he, For nothing would he do But scribble poetry He took An ink stand In his hand And a pen Big as ten In the other, And away In a pother He ran To the mountains And fountains And ghostes And postes And witches And ditches And wrote In his coat When the weather Was cool, Fear of gout, And without When the weather Was warm Och the charm When we choose To follow one's nose To the north, To the north, To follow one's nose To the north! III. There was a naughty boy And a naughty boy was he, He kept little fishes In washing tubs three In spite Of the might Of the maid Nor afraid Of his Granny-good He often would Hurly burly Get up early And go By hook or crook To the brook And bring home Miller's thumb, Tittlebat Not over fat, Minnows small As the stall Of a glove, Not above The size Of a nice Little baby's Little fingers O he made 'Twas his trade Of fish a pretty kettle A kettle A kettle Of fish a pretty kettle A kettle! IV. There was a naughty boy, And a naughty boy was he, He ran away to Scotland The people for to see There he found That the ground Was as hard, That a yard Was as long, That a song Was as merry, That a cherry Was as red, That lead Was as weighty, That fourscore Was as eighty, That a door Was as wooden As in England So he stood in his shoes And he wonder'd, He wonder'd, He stood in his Shoes and he wonder'd.


This poem is featured in our selection of 100 Great Poems


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