Where Are You Going?

Where are you going, sister Kate?

I’m going to swing on the garden gate,

And watch the fairy gypsies dance

Their tim-tam-tum on the cabbage-plants—

The great big one with the purple nose,

And the tiny tad with the pinky toes.

Where are you going, brother Ben?

I’m going to build a tiger-pen.

I’ll get iron and steel and ’lectric wire

And build it a hundred feet, or higher,

And put ten tigers in it too,

And a big wildcat, and—mebbe—you.

Where are you going, mother mine?

I’m going to sit by the old grapevine,

And watch the gliding swallow bring

Clay for her nest from the meadow spring—

Clay and straw and a bit of thread

To weave it into a baby’s bed.

Where are you going, grandma dear?

I’m going, love, where the skies are clear,

And the light winds lift the poppy flowers

And gather clouds for the summer showers,

Where the old folks and the children play

On the warm hillside through the livelong day.