London Children

Do you unto this world belong,
To cheer us merrily with song?
Are you mortal like ourselves,
Or are you, charming little elves,
Sent from some higher sphere
To bliss and comfort us while here?
May you be spared from earthly woes
And each blossom like the rose.

Where this text comes from

First published in Musings on the Banks of Canadian Thames (1884). First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established. [1]

Structure read from the source's markup; the words have not been compared against a page scan. Last checked 2026-08-20.

Taken from Standard Ebooks, standardebooks/james-mcintyre_poetry, poetry.xhtml. Rights: public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931).

Earlier sources (3)

This poem as JSON or plain text. Line anchors #L1–#L8.

Cite this poem

James McIntyre (1828?–1906). “London Children.” First published in Musings on the Banks of Canadian Thames (1884). Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/james-mcintyre/london-children/. Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.

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