Poems, Songs and Rhymes about Cleanliness and Washing Up
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?
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
June 12th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
Here’s a very old rhyme I found about being washed and about being dirty (it’s hard to imagine someone writing it nowadays):
BEING WASHED.
” WHAT ! cry, little Boy, when you’re washed !
To be sure,” said Mamma, “you’re in joke !”
Then Edward looked up much ashamed,
And was quiet as soon as she spoke.
“Why, would you be dirty,” said she,
” And keep filthy clothes on to wear ?
Who’d kiss my dear Boy’s pretty face ;
Or love him, or like to come near ?
Be washed then, and made a nice child.”
And offering her hand, as she stood,
He kissed her, and smiled at his Nurse,
And promised them both he’d be good.
June 24th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
My personal favorite is “The Goops” by, I think, Burgess Meredith.
“The Goops, they lick their fingers,
The Goops, they lick their knives.
They spill their broth on the tablecloth,
They lead disgusting lives.
The Goops, they talk while eating,
And loud and fast they chew.
And this is why I’m glad that I am not a Goop –
Are you?”
That second stanza veers away from cleanliness, I admit, but we always enjoyed reciting it when I was a child. Our family method involved dropping our voices about an octave on “disgusting.”
June 25th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Thanks for pointing that out! Cool poem! I checked and it looks like it was written by Gelett Burgess and published in 1900.
-Mama Lisa
June 25th, 2008 at 9:47 pm
Here’s another Goop poem about Acting Uncleanly…
PERCIVAL B. SLOOP
Acting Uncleanly
Just look at
Percival B. Sloop,
A most unpleasant
sort of Goop;
He pokes his fingers
in his nose
And wipes his hands
upon his clothes;
He does a lot
of things that you,
I know, would never,
never do!
June 25th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
At Project Gutenberg you can find THE GOOP DIRECTORY
OF Juvenile Offenders Famous for their Misdeeds and Serving as a Salutary Example for all Virtuous Children.
It has Goop poems for all sorts of good behaviors one might want to teach children.
(From the link above you can either download it or go to Gutenberg’s online version of the book.)
June 25th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
Here’s another poem about cleanliness:
GOOP! GOOP! GOOP!
Goop! Goop! Goop!
I wish you’d wash your face!
Goop! Goop! Goop!
Your hands are a disgrace!
Goop! Goop! Goop!
Put things back in their place!
I wish you were polite,
Instead of a
Goop! Goop! Goop!
This one comes from another Goop book that’s at Project Gutenberg called MORE GOOPS and How Not to Be Them: A Manual of Manners for Impolite Infants.
August 4th, 2008 at 9:24 am
i have no comments but this poem i remember is bits of paper-
Bits of paper, Bits of paper
lying on the floor, lying on the floor
pick them up, pick them up……………………………………
please if you remember please reply
May 21st, 2009 at 9:16 am
Hey, thanks for the help with the rhymes! Here is a song I found this week:
Wash, wash, wash, your hands play our handy game rub and scrub, scrub and rub germs go down the drain HEY! Wash, Wash, Wash your hands play our handy game rub and scrub, scrub and rub dirt goes down the drain HEY! (on the melody of “row, row, row your boat…gently down the stream…)
May 21st, 2009 at 9:19 am
Lisa, I’m urgently also looking for stories. (summaries will do.)
The five themes are:
1. Washing hands
2. Brushing teeth/anything about dental care
3. Wiping of noses
4. Washing of the whole body
5. Toilet/ potty-training routine
Please help?!?
May 21st, 2009 at 4:44 pm
There’s an online book called Oh, What a Mess by Hans Wilhelm. about a pig family that learns to clean their home and themselves.
May 21st, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Here’s another poem I found called Washing and Dressing:
Ah! why will my dear little girl be so cross,
And cry, and look sulky and pout?
To lose her sweet smile is a terrible loss,
I can’t even kiss her without.
You say you don’t like to be washed and be drest
But would you be dirty and foul?
Come, drive that long sob from your dear little breast,
And clear your sweet face from its scowl.
If the water is cold, and the comb hurts your head,
And the soap has got into your eye,
Will the water grow warmer for all that you’ve said?
And what good will it do you to cry?
It is not to tease you, and hurt you, my sweet,
But only for kindness and care,
That I wash you and dress you, and make you look neat,
And comb out your tanglesome hair.
I don’t mind the trouble, if you would not cry,
But pay me for all with a kiss;
That’s right, take the towel and wipe your wet eye;
I thought you’d be good after this.
September 28th, 2009 at 8:20 am
Dear Lisa, the story link that you hv given above is really good….but can u help me with some short story …say about a few lines….?
Specifically on the topic…I keep my body clean…
thanks
November 13th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Here’s a strange one…
Dirty Jim
There was one little Jim,
‘Tis reported of him,
And must be to his lasting disgrace,
That he never was seen
With hands at all clean,
Nor yet ever clean was his face.
His friends were much hurt
To see so much dirt,
And often they made him quite clean;
But all was in vain,
He got dirty again,
And not at all fit to be seen.
It gave him no pain
To hear them complain,
Nor his own dirty clothes to survey;
His indolent mind
No pleasure could find
In tidy and wholesome array.
The idle and bad,
Like this little lad,
May love dirty ways, to be sure;
But good boys are seen,
To be decent and clean,
Although they are ever so poor.
Jane Taylor (1783-1824)