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Mud
by
Polly Chase Boyden


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Mud is very nice to feel
   All squishy-squash between the toes!
I'd rather wade in wiggly mud
   Than smell a yellow rose.

Nobody else but the rosebush knows
How nice mud feels
   Between the toes.

This poem is in the public domain.

 


Regrettably, we have been unable to learn much about Polly Chase Boyden. She apparently published at least one book and seems to have had poems published in several magazines.
An article in the December 12, 1932 edition of Time magazine refers to her as "Chicago's colorful Mrs. Polly Chase Boyden." Please contact us if you know any further biographical details.

 


Post New Comment:
VC:
My parents made a tape recoding of us singing singing different songs. It was 1970 and my brothers were aged 5 and 6. I was 3. We had just immigrated to America from Jamaica that year. This was one of the poems my big brother recited, taught to him by the nuns at his old school Mt. Alvernia in Montego Bay. We lost the tape in Hurricane Katrina flooding, but the fond memory of the first line Mud is very nice to feel has me searching the web for its source. Thanks for sharing.
Posted 12/29/2022 12:09 PM
Critter/Plants/Art:
I had to learn this poem in second grade (1957-58) at Centerville Elementary School, Anderson, South Carolina, and remember most of it to this day. I'd always left our the part about wading wiggle mud than smelling a yellow rose.Thank you Mrs. Majors, for helping me to learn something that has stayed with me over 60 years. Being a gardener, I used the quote frequently. Diane Taylor Hayes
Posted 02/03/2022 10:35 PM
Donald :
Donald Wortman: In 1956 I was in second grade. I was just looking through library books. I saw a color print of a little girl standing next to a yellow rose bush with her feet in the mud. I read the poem Mud over and over. When I came back to the library I remembered where the book was on the shelf and I read it again. This was the first poem I ever read and I never forgot.
Posted 09/16/2021 08:21 PM
MustangSilly:
I remember this poem from a Ladybird Book of children's poems from the 1970s. I was looking on line for it to put in a scrapbook with photos if my daughter who loves mud so much.
Posted 06/16/2021 09:45 AM
rileytrumbull:
Polly Boyden knew just about ever literary light inearly mid-century America, and she hosted most of them Her book The Pink Egg even had a sort of cult following among them...She lived in Truro on the Cape for many years and her house was open to any one who was witty, erudite, intellectual...or just fun. A remarkable person whose light appears to have been "under a bushel". Worth researching! Caroline Riley Trumbull - I knew her in the 60's
Posted 04/10/2021 10:34 PM
fer:
Ah, the memories.... I knew just how to make the best mud all squishy-squashy between the toes and even found a V nickel while doing so one time. I still have a little poetry book with this poem in it, with credit given to Child Life Magazine, copyright 1930 -- that's all.
Posted 08/31/2013 06:16 AM


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