Pretty Things

First published in The Peter Patter Book of Nursery Rhymes (1918).

This is one of those rhymes that feels like a child simply pointing at the world in wonder — poppies, pebbles, puffy clouds — everything is “pretty,” and that’s enough reason to love it. There’s no plot, no lesson, no joke — just pure noticing. It reads like a toddler’s delighted inventory of the universe.

The moment that seals it is the line “standing in a pansy-bed” — you can see the chubby little shoes right among the flowers, utterly guiltless and proud. And the ending doesn’t shrink things — it explodes them: not just a nice flower or two, but “the great, big pretty world.”