The Nine Little Goblins

They all climbed up on a high board-fence -
Nine little Goblins, with green-glass eyes -
Nine little Goblins that had no sense,
And couldn't tell coppers from cold mince pies;
    And they all climbed up on the fence, and sat -
    And I asked them what they were staring at.

And the first one said, as he scratched his head
With a queer little arm that reached out of his ear
And rasped its claws in his hair so red -
"This is what this little arm is fer!"
    And he scratched and stared, and the next one said,
    "How on earth do you scratch your head?"

And he laughed like the screech of a rusty hinge -
Laughed and laughed till his face grew black;
And when he choked, with a final twinge
Of his stifling laughter, he thumped his back
    With a fist that grew on the end of his tail
    Till the breath came back to his lips so pale.

And the third little Goblin leered round at me -
And there were no lids on his eyes at all -
And he clucked one eye, and he says, says he,
"What is the style of your socks this fall?"
    And he clapped his heels - and I sighed to see
    That he had hands where his feet should be.

Then a bald-faced Goblin, gray and grim,
Bowed his head, and I saw him slip
His eyebrows off, as I looked at him,
And paste them over his upper lip;
    And then he moaned in remorseful pain -
    "Would - Ah, would I'd me brows again!"

And then the whole of the Goblin band
Rocked on the fence-top to and fro,
And clung, in a long row, hand in hand,
Singing the songs that they used to know -
    Singing the songs that their grandsires sung
    In the goo-goo days of the Goblin-tongue.

And ever they kept their green-glass eyes
Fixed on me with a stony stare -
Till my own grew glazed with a dread surmise,
And my hat whooped up on my lifted hair,
    And I felt the heart in my breast snap to
    As you've heard the lid of a snuff-box do.

And they sang "You're asleep! There is no board-fence,
And never a Goblin with green-glass eyes! -
'Tis only a vision the mind invents
After a supper of cold mince-pies, -
And you're doomed to dream this way," they said, -
"And you sha'n't wake up till you're clean plum dead!"

James Whitcomb Riley

James Whitcomb Riley was an American writer, poet, and best-selling author. He was known as the "Hoosier Poet" and the "Children's Poet" for his dialect works and children's poetry respectively. Over his career, Riley authored approximately 1,000 poems, including "Little Orphant Annie" and "The Raggedy Man". His influence extended into the 20th century, and his works continued to be celebrated for their nostalgic and rural themes.

James Whitcomb Riley

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English

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O'er unreclaimed suburban clays
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I.

Once when it had rained all night
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II.

"Yes, those surely are their huts!
Built of moon and mist and rain,
Such dim stuff as Elfland puts
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Jane tapped at the door of the house in the wood,
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His shoes down the passage came clod, clod, clod,
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An' make the fire, an' bake the bread, an' earn her board-an'-keep;
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We set around the kitchen fire an' has the mostest fun
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An' the Gobble-uns 'at gits you
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        Out!

Onc't they was a little boy wouldn't say his prayers,
An' when he went to bed at night, away up stairs,
His Mammy heerd him holler, an' his Daddy heerd him bawl,
An' when they turn't the kivvers down, he wasn't there at all!
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"Oh, when I was a little Ghost,
A merry time had we!
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"That story is in print!" I cried.
"Don't say it's not, because
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He hardly thought it was).

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'On posteses,' you know, and ate
Their 'buttered toasteses.'

"I have the book; so if you doubt it,"
I turned to search the shelf.
"Don't stir!" he cried. "We'll do without it:
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I wrote the thing myself.

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My nurse she tells me stories, too,
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Last night I could n't sleep, because
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I.

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Of making his father and mother mad;
Until one day he ran away
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For a little while in the witches' way.

II.

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