Diddily Dee Dot's Dreamland for Children Everywhere.: March 2010

Wednesday, 10 March 2010

The Kettle on the Hob

Molly is a Minstrel Lass
can create lots of fun from long songs,
to small stories, for every one.

THE KETTLE ON THE HOB

They may talk as they will about singing
Their harps and their lutes and what not,
Their fiddles are not worth the stringing
Compared to the music I've got ;

It sings every morning to cheer me.
My pockets it never can rob,
I'm happy each morn when it's near me,
'Tis my kettle that sings on the hob.

At eve, when from labour returning,
I list to its musical throb;
Worth all your fal-lals and fine learning,
'Is — my kettle that sings on the hob.

With home-faces smiling around me,
And children and wife at the board.
No music such joy ever found me
As that its sweet song doth afford.

I love every inch of its metal,
From the tip of the spout to the knob,
'Lead a temperate life,' sings the kettle.
The kettle that sings on the hob.

Sometimes an old friend shares my table.
Though never on dainties I dine.
I treat him as well as I'm able,
Tho' I boast of no cellar of wine.

'Tis friendship gives zest to the liquor,
Tho' we but in tea hob-a-nob.
And to make it the hotter and quicker
There's the kettle that sings on the hob.

Yet with lessons far deeper and higher,
The song of the kettle may teem;
'Twas the kettle that sung on the fire
That first proved the power of steam.

What great things from small may be spinging
Is proved by the engine's deep sob,
And yet, after all, the beginning
Was the kettle that sings on the hob.

And so, to the kettle returning,
I list to its musical throb,
And find there's a lesson worth learning
In my kettle that sings on tiie hob.

by J E Carpenter.

Not a lot seems to have been written about the man J. E. Carpenter,
but his full name was Joseph Edward Carpenter and he wrote wonderful poetry.
The Romance of the Dreamer is one of his books, and there is an message on
the inside dated 1st September 1841, I have the above poem in an old book which was reprinted in 1873, but I can't find any pictures of him."