Pensive Percy
Percy when a little boy
Was quiet as a mouse,
He never set the barn afire
Nor battered down the house.
He used to sit for hours and hours
Just gazing at the moon,
And feeding little fishes
Sarsaparilla from a spoon.
Illustration by Blanche Fisher Wright
First published in The Peter Patter Book of Nursery Rhymes (1918).
Though written in 1918, Pensive Percy feels like it could have drifted out of an earlier age. It has the rhythm of a nursery classic, yet the humor is distinctly modern — a quiet boy who’d rather feed his fish soda than chase mischief. Percy’s world is small but vivid: moonlight, goldfish, and a spoonful of imagination. What keeps it timeless is that kindly foolishness — the sort that only a child, or someone who remembers childhood, can understand.
