Health And Safety | Mama Lisa's World Blog

Poems, Songs and Rhymes about Cleanliness and Washing Up

Wednesday, May 28th, 2008

Kishan 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 away

Finally, 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?