The American writer Eugene Field (1850–1895) is best known for his children’s poetry and his humorous essays. He gained fame (to his disgust) as the ‘poet of childhood’.

At college he was not a serious student and spent much of his time at school playing practical jokes, so he did not get any degree. He embarked on a career as journalist. He became known for his light, humorous articles written in a gossipy style, and his humorous column “Funny Fancies” gained popularity among readers.

Field first started publishing poetry in 1879. In 1894 he published his first collection of verses on childhood, Love Songs of Childhood. In 1904 it was expanded into a bigger collection, Poems of Childhood. I have chosen from it a charming poem where two children are in love and play at being father and mother, or lovers lost years ago then found again.

AT PLAY

PLAY that you are mother dear,
And play that papa is your beau;
Play that we sit in the corner here,
Just as we used to, long ago.
Playing so, we lovers two
Are just as happy as we can be,
And I’ll say “I love you” to you,
And you say “I love you” to me!
“I love you” we both shall say,
All in earnest and all in play.

Or, play that you are that other one
That some time came, and went away;
And play that the light of years agone
Stole into my heart again to-day!
Playing that you are the one I knew
In the days that never again may be,
I’ll say “I love you” to you,
And you say “I love you” to me!
“I love you!” my heart shall say
To the ghost of the past come back to-day!

Or, play that you sought this nestling-place
For your own sweet self, with that dual guise
Of your pretty mother in your face
And the look of that other in your eyes!
So the dear old loves shall live anew
As I hold my darling on my knee,
And I’ll say “I love you” to you,
And you say “I love you” to me!
Oh, many a strange, true thing we say
And do when we pretend to play!

Source of the poem: Love-Songs of Childhood by Eugene Field. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons (1926). Digitised on Internet Archive and as a Project Gutenberg Ebook. The poem is on page 87.

Other source: Poems of Childhood by Eugene Field, with illustrations by Maxfield Parrish. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons (1904). Digitised as a Project Gutenberg Ebook and hypertext version on Wikisource. The poem is on page 180.

This poem has been reprinted in the collection Amours Enfantines by François Lemonnier. My thanks to him for drawing my attention to this poem and this collection.