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Poems, Songs and Rhymes about Cleanliness and Washing Up
Wednesday, May 28th, 2008Kishan emailed me requesting a poem about cleanliness.
Here are some rhymes and poems I found that are generally about cleanliness, keeping clean or washing up…
First, here’s a traditional nursery rhyme that mentions having a clean face:
The Clock
There’s a neat little clock,
In the schoolroom it stands,
And it points to the time
With its two little hands.And may we, like the clock,
Keep a face clean and bright,
With hands ever ready
To do what is right.This next rhyme is about washing feet:
Marguerite
Marguerite, go wash your feet;
The board of health is ‘cross the street.Here’s a song you can sing when washing up or brushing teeth:
This is the Way We Wash our Hands
(To the tune of Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush)This is the way we wash our hands
Wash our hands, wash our hands,
This is the way we wash our hands
In the afternoon (or “To keep us very healthy”)(You can continue with washing other body parts or substitute the line “This is the way we brush our teeth”.)
Here’s a song about washing away germs:
GERMS!
Wash your face and hands with soap,
Wash them every day!
Keeping clean by using soap
Will help keep germs awayFinally, below you’ll find an old poem called Cleanliness by Charles and Mary Lamb from around 1874. First I’ve given a shortened version that I found and after that you’ll find the full, longer version of it:
Cleanliness
All-endearing cleanliness,
Virtue next to godliness,
Easiest, cheapest, needfull’st duty,
To the body health and beauty;
Who that’s human would refuse it,
When a little water does it?Here’s the longer version:
Cleanliness
Come, my little Robert, near-
Fie! what filthy hands are here!
Who, that e’er could understand
The rare structure of a hand,
With its branching fingers fine,
Work itself of hands divine,
Strong, yet delicately knit,
For ten thousand uses fit,
Overlaid with so clear skin
You may see the blood within,-
Who this hand would choose to cover
With a crust of dirt all over,
Till it look’d in hue and shape
Like the forefoot of an ape!
Man or boy that works or plays
In the fields or the highways,
May, without offence or hurt,
From the soil contract a dirt
Which the next clear spring or river
Washes out and out for ever-
But to cherish stains impure,
Soil deliberate to endure,
On the skin to fix a stain
Till it works into the grain,
Argues a degenerate mind,
Sordid, slothful, ill-inclined,
Wanting in that self-respect
Which does virtue best protect.
All-endearing cleanliness,
Virtue next to godliness,
Easiest, cheapest, needfull’st duty,
To the body health and beauty;
Who that’s human would refuse it,
When a little water does it?If you know of any songs, rhymes, poems, or sayings about cleanliness or washing up, please let us know about them in the comments below.
Thanks!
Mama Lisa
“Beware the Ides of March” on March 15th!
Thursday, March 9th, 2006The Ides of March is on March 15th every year.
The expression Beware the Ides of March can mean beware of impending danger.
If someone says Beware the Ides of March referring to March 15th itself, it can have the sense of March 15th being a bad luck day, just like Friday the 13th.
The word “ides” originally referred to the day of the full moon every month. Eventually, with the change in the calendar system, it referred to the 15th of the month in any month that has 31 days (March, May, July and October) and it referred to the 13th of the month in all other months of the year.
The origin of the sinister meaning of the Ides of March is the fact that this is the actual day that Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC by some Roman Senators.
The Romans had gotten rid of their kings hundreds of years earlier and they were proud of the fact that they were a Republic. (Although only the rich had a say in government and a large proportion of the population were slaves.) The Senators killed Caesar because they were worried that he was gaining too much power for any one man.
After Caesar was killed, the people of Rome were unhappy about his death. Those senators involved in his assassination had to leave the city.
The Senators’ plans to forestall despotic rule in Rome failed. After Caesar’s death, his adopted son Augustus became Emperor. The Republic was never restored.
Over 1500 years later, William Shakespeare wrote the play Julius Caesar. That’s where the phrase Beware the Ides of March comes from. In the play, a soothsayer said it to Julius Caesar on the day of his assassination.
So, if it’s March 15th… Beware!
Lisa
A Couple of New Year’s Nursery Rhymes and a Quote by Ben Franklin
Saturday, December 31st, 2005Here are two old nursery rhymes related to the New Year…
He who is born on New Year’s morn
Will have his own way as sure as you were born.***
Married when the year is new,
He’ll be loving, kind and true.***
Here’s a quote from Ben Franklin about the New Year…
Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man.
Happy New Year!
Lisa
Early to Bed, Early to Rise…
Sunday, December 11th, 2005Helen wrote me,
Hi,
Do you know the name of the one that includes
“early to bed and early to rise”?I think the the word wise is also included.
I have searched every where I can think of on the internet but this is still keeping me awake at night.
Thanks,
Helen
Benjamin Franklin wrote it. The whole saying is…
Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.
Ben Franklin was a very cool guy. He wanted to make the symbolic bird of the U.S. the turkey!
UPDATE: It turns out that Benjamin Franklin took the Early to Bed saying from an old proverb. Come read all about it on a later post!
Quote by Neil Gaiman about Songs
Tuesday, October 4th, 2005“Songs remain. They last. The right song can turn an emperor into a laughingstock, can bring down dynasties. A song can last long after the events and the people in it are dust and dreams and gone. That’s the power of songs.”
-From Neil Gaiman’s new book Anansi Boys
(Which btw I thoroughly enjoyed and would recommend to anyone looking for something compelling to read. After finishing it, I kept thinking I wanted to stay with those characters and find out more about them – which is always the sign of a good book. The other sign is when the book’s done and you can’t imagine starting a new one because you don’t want the previous one to leave your mind so fast. That’s how I feel now! I don’t know at what rate Gaiman writes his novels, but I have a feeling I’ll have to wait a year or two.)
The Power of Songs
Thursday, September 29th, 2005My husband and I just began watching an excellent Martin Scorsese documentary film about Bob Dylan, No Direction Home. Dylan told a fascinating story.
When he was ten, he first heard a song called Drifting Too Far from the Shore. “The sound of the record made me feel like I was somebody else,” Dylan said. “That I was maybe not even born to the same parents or something.”
Hearing this made me think of the power of hearing music in childhood. How it can totally change children’s perceptions of everything and open up whole new worlds to them.
I welcome stories about how music changed your life, even in little ways.
Quote from Terry Pratchett’s Thud!
Saturday, September 24th, 2005“Coffee was only a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to your slightly older self.”
I don’t know if it’s true. But it sounds good. So, perhaps, as a coffee drinker, it’s something to ponder!
________
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