Enid Blyton (26 page)

The Poet

by Enid Blyton

(
The Poetry Review
[
Poetry of Today
] 1919)

A CHILD

Whose eyes at times see God

And all his angels,

Hid in some sunset cloud

Wherein we see

But shapes.

And lo,

Around and thro’ the stars

He hears the song

Weaved from the rolling worlds – While we but hear

The wind.

A love

He bears to all the world,

And to his God.

Beauty in all he sees.

Beauty we find

In him.

Dear heart

And soul of a child, Sing on!

Things I Won’t Forget

by Enid Blyton

(From
Silver and Gold,
1925)

When I’m grown up I won’t forget the things I think today –

I won’t forget the sort of things I like to do and say;

I won’t be like the folk I know, who seem so very old,

And quite forget the things they did when they were eight years old.

There’s lots of other things, of course, that I’ll remember too;

And then when I’m grown up I’ll know what children like to do.

I’ll know the things they’re frightened of, I’ll know the things they hate –

And oh! I hope they’ll love me, though they’ll know I’m long past eight!

To Hang – or Not to Hang – that is the Question!

Two Points of View

(Poem written during Government discussion on the Abolition of Capital Punishment, [1950])

What – you’d have them hung –

not give them a chance!

Poor fellows, they’re mentally ill!

They need kindly treatment –

reforming, you know –

And first-rate psychiatrist’s skill!.

I’m told they’re unhappy, and warped in their minds,

We’ve no right, to let a man swing

Simply because he has strangled a child

And raped her – yes, poor little thing,

I grant you it’s shocking – but I think it’s wrong

To hang that poor man till he’s dead –

Reform him! He’ll make a good citizen yet –

This hanging – it makes me see red!

Then I said, ‘Well, mothers can see red at times –

The red of a little girl’s blood,

And loud in our ears we can hear the weak cries

Of a child with her cheek in the mud.

She sobs for her father, and maybe to God,

But only the nightwind sighs

As a monster rapes and strangles and gloats,

Then carries away his prize

To dump in a ditch, or under a hedge –

And see him when morning’s here

As he reads of the crime and tut-tuts to his wife,

‘Another
sex-murder, my dear!’

No – don’t interrupt me – and DON’T say again

That Death is too hard for this man;

Was Death then so easy for that little girl,

Whose few years were so short a span?

You’ve pity to spare for the raper, who knows

That in lust he would murder again,

But you’ve none for the child, and little for those

Who mourn her in horror and pain.

And you ask me WHY I would hang this man!

Though you know it’s our only hope

To stop any fiend who would rape and kill –

He’s a coward – and he fears the rope!

You’re not quite sure if I’m right – or not?

You’ll think about it – alone?

Well, if you’re doubtful,
I’m
certain of this –

You haven’t a child of your own!’

April Day

(Enid Blyton’s last known poem)

There is a copse I know on Purbeck Hills

That holds the April sun to its green breast;

Where daffodils

Are wild and small and shy,

And celandines in polished gold are drest.

Here windflowers dance a ballet full of grace,

And speedwell blue

Looks on with brilliant eye.

There, innocent of face,

The daisies grow,

And yellow primroses like children press

In little crowds together all day through.

Be silent, velvet bee,

And let me brood

At peace in this enchanted loneliness.

Chaffinch, take your merry song, and go

To some more distant tree.

‘Tis not my mood

To have this silence stirred

By wing of bee

Or voice of bird.

Now, let me stand and gaze –

But ah, so lavishly is beauty spread

These April days,

There is no place to tread.

Then must I choose

To put away my shoes

And kneel instead.

On the Popular Fallacy that to the Pure All Things Are Pure

(
Saturday Westminster Review
, February 19th, 1921)

The Pure, I have found out from the thirty-three people I have met since last Friday, means the ‘Really Good People’. The definitions varied in detail, but in the main tended towards those three words I myself give no meaning; having been swamped by other people’s opinions – but I do know that I feel relieved. The reason is this: I used to think with sorrow that I did not belong to the ranks of the Pure, being firmly convinced that margarine is not pure, nor our new silver. Therefore it followed that I also was not pure, not one of the ‘Really Good People’.

It is with joy that I realise (helped by the
Saturday Westminster)
that I may still attain Heaven. On studying the subject further I find that those to whom all things are pure must be either extremely undiscerning or hypocritical. This is a very grave decision, as I myself possess several relatives who profess to trust everybody, .nd to find no fault with anything. ‘Everything’, according to them, ‘has some good in it’, and ‘Evil cannot touch those who do not believe in it’, Of course there really is something in that – but it may lead to Christian Science, which is quite all right outside the family, but very uncomfortable in. Aunt Maria did not believe in measles herself, even when she had it, so that I thought it most unkind of her to pass it on to people who did believe in it. However, she could never see my point –she may do now that I am in the ‘Really Good People’ set.

A difficult point has come into my thoughts. How can we distinguish the
Pure People,
for the Impure also can often discern the difference between good and bad things? Of course, before we found out that the subject of our essay was a fallacy, it was so easy to point out the Pure. We cannot say ‘To the Pure all things are pure if they are, and impure if they are not’. For one thing, it sounds silly, and for another, as I said before, it applies also to those who are
not
the Pure. Neither can we rewrite the saying, ‘To the Undiscerning and Hypocrites all things are pure’, since it is certain most of my relations (and yours) would rise in indignation and drive us from their doors.

How did this fallacious saying of Paul’s become accepted? Is it possible that the thousands of people go about believing in it, and so cheerfully resign their claims to goodness, because they know they turn up their noses at the smell of cabbage cooking? Surely some thing deeper lies below – some hidden meaning I have missed; perhaps ‘pure’ could be replaced by a better word? But, no; our Problems Editor should know – he who separates the wheat from the chaff so many times a year. It would be so dangerous to find the fallacy fallacious. He would have to give prizes to everybody…

ENID BLYTON

(N.B. – This essay is not really obscure in meaning.)

‘From My Window’

(Enid Blyton’s weekly talk in
Teachers’ World)

July 4th, 1923

FIRST COLUMN

Here am I embarked on the first column, and what shall it be about? Books? No. Nature? No. Children? Yes, because I have been with them all day, and my mind is full of them.

It has often struck me how like a child’s mind is in its way of working to the mind of a genius. A compliment to children some will say. I think it is a compliment to genius. A child’s mind is wonderful in its simplicity, directness, and sensitiveness. The younger a child is, the more clearly these characteristics show. The older he gets, the more he learns to hide his mind from others, and in doing so, he loses in simplicity and naturalness.

I have been reading some lives of men and women of genius. Their characteristic attitude of mind was a questioning one. Why? How? When and where? they were continually asking. Just the words I have heard the children say to me all day. And then, too, like the genius, the child is always delightedly finding things which resemble each other. ‘Oh, isn’t that piece of sorrel like a small red poplar tree!’

The genius works in the same way. The poet uses his lucid and beautiful similes, the scientist reasons by analogy, and a Linnaeus minutely records the similar characteristics of a host of plants.

A young child is intensely original. He has not learnt to think as others think, nor does he know enough to realise he is ignorant. He thinks for himself, he imagines, he observes with a curiously thorough and penetrating eye, often with comical or embarrassing results. Genius also is tremendously original and independent, and observes with a child’s own absorbed concentration.

And at last of all, as Froebel knew, a child is always seeking to express himself – to give out what he has taken in – and through the same need of expression, genius has given our greatest treasures.

The questioning, wondering mind, that analyses and puts together, that observes and records for itself, and that finally bursts out into an expression of the many impressions – there is a description equally applicable to mature genius, or to immature childhood. What is the explanation of the curious similarity? Why does it in all but a few cases cease as the child grows? Is it some fault of our education, that has not recognised the real trend of a child’s mind, which is, surely, genius-ward in its simplicity and need for expression?

I do not think genius is a mysterious something with which one must be born. I think it is the natural result of using one’s mind to the fullest extent, of loving beauty in any form and of directly expressing the powerful spiritual effects which clamour for release. If only we could train our children in the way that geniuses perforce have to train themselves, we should get a wonderful type of ordinary men and women.

I may be entirely wrong in my surmises, but the question is an intensely interesting one, and I, in common, I suspect, with many other teachers, would dearly love to hear the modern psychologist’s reasoned solution of the problem.

February 27th, 1924

ON PRETENDING

I love children who pretend. I love grown-ups who pretend. I love pretending myself. There is no doubt about it, it is a distinct gift, and one to be used and cherished and developed. It is nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to hide and put away with other childish things. But though I think this with all my might, I am sometimes powerless to prevent myself feeling extremely foolish and babyish when I am accidentally caught by one of those admirable, practical, commonsensical people, who seem to pop up anywhere when one is doing something rather odd and unusual!

I think the ‘pretends’ I like best are those I enjoy in the company of children. There is one rule about pretending which must never be broken – you must be absolutely serious about it. If you break this rule you can neither pretend yourself, nor will the children pretend in front of you.

Last week was quite a red-letter week. I had in the garden, at 11.15 every morning, two or three policemen, a frightfully bold and audacious burglar, one Indian, a Canadian express train, a goods train, two motor-buses who had the exciting gift of changing into their own conductor and driver at will, and last, but not least, a galloping horse, who said ‘Gee-up’ and smacked himself at short intervals. He invited me for a ride, but (fortunately) I happened to be a stern Bedouin of the desert at the moment and therefore preferred camels for riding. The horse, before my eyes, began to change into a suitable camel, but the school-bell rang before the metamorphosis was complete.

But I love pretending by myself, too. That is one reason why I love London so much. You can wander about in London pretending anything in the world that you wish to pretend, and no one is a penny the wiser.

I have only met one person so far who owned to me that he loves pretending, and does it shamelessly. Are there many others, I wonder, who pretend too, and hide it all away carefully? I would love to know. There ought to be a Society for Pretenders, to give us more self-confidence!

Of course, pretending has its drawbacks. One of the characteristics of real pretending is that it is practically impossible to become yourself again at short notice. If you
do
happen to go dreaming down the Strand, imagining yourself to be a sailor home from Mandalay after ten years’ absence, it is almost impossible to avoid saying, ‘Avast there, mate!’ when anyone bumps into you.

But a worse thing than that happened last Friday. I had spent the afternoon with someone who had told me about a thrilling journey in an armoured train to Baghdad. I was living it over again, and felt the heat of the East over me, and I was wondering if Arabs would hold up the train, and wishing we could quickly arrive at Baghdad. Suddenly the person opposite me leaned over and said, ‘Can you tell me if this train stops at Herne Hill?’

I stared at her scornfully. ‘First stop Baghdad!’ I answered promptly and decisively, and then was covered with the direst confusion. My companion gave one straight look at me, and fled from the carriage at the next stop.

Yes, I certainly think Pretenders should wear some sort of badge. It is not nice to be thought mad, when you yourself know you are perfectly sane. But I’m going to be VERY careful in the future!

January 6th, 1926

LETTERS FROM TEACHERS

I want to write about something which has been growing in my mind for a long time, and that is, what I read in letters from teachers. I have written once or twice about the charm of
children’s
letters, and I could quite easily write a whole book about them, especially just after Christmas. I can’t say a big enough thank you to those teachers who allow their children to write naturally to me. The gems I get in practically every letter are without price, and I long to see every child-writer, as I read his or her letter. ‘I am a very norty boy,’ says one frank letter, ‘so I don’t egspeck you would like me, but I like you allrite.’ And I should love you, little norty boy, if only I could see you! I could quote a hundred other gems of literature, but I won’t just now. It is the teachers I am thinking of.