A Day in Bed

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



I wish I had not got a cold,
The wind is big and wild,
I wish that I was very old,
Not just a little child.

Somehow the day is very long
Just keeping here, alone;
I do not like the big wind's song,
He's growling for a bone

He's like an awful dog we had
Who used to creep around
And snatch at things--he was so bad,
With just that horrid sound.

I'm sitting up and nurse has made
Me wear a woolly shawl;
I wish I was not so afraid;
It's horrid to be small.

It really feels quite like a day
Since I have had my tea;
P'raps everybody's gone away
And just forgotten me.

And oh!  I cannot go to sleep
Although I am in bed.
The wind keeps going creepy-creep
And waiting to be fed.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

44 sec read
98

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GHGH IJIJ KLKL
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 658
Words 142
Stanzas 6
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 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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