A Pumpkin Full of Poetry
Pumpkin
Pumpkins
After its lid
A farmer grew pumpkins;
Is cut, the slick
So, late in the Fall,
Seeds and stuck
He went out one day
Wet strings
And he gathered them all!
Scooped out,
The biggest and roundest
Walls craped
He sent to the fair
Dry and white,
In hopes of its winning
Face carved, candle
A blue ribbon there.
Fixed and lit.
The rest went to market,
Light creeps
Except for a few;
Into the thick
His wife made some pies
Rind: giving
Of all except two.
That dead orange
And what of the two
Vegetable skull
Oh, they’re a surprise
Warm skin, making
With long, jagged teeth
A live head
And a light in their eyes!
To hold its
-Nona Keen Duffy
Sharp gold grin.
-Valerie Worth
Jack-O-Lantern Garden
Pumpkin
I wish I had a garden,
We bought a fat
Where the warm sun brightly shines.
orange pumpkin,
I’d plant each nook and corner
The plumpest sort
With jack-o’-lantern vines.
they sell.
Then, from my little garden
We neatly scooped
I’d pick for Halloween
the inside out
More golden jack-o’-lanterns
And only left
Than you have ever seen.
the shell.
Of course, I’d choose the biggest,
We carved a funny
The one that’s brightest gold.
funny-face
To peep in at your window—
Of silly shape
Oh, there, I almost told!
and size,
-Gertrude M. Robinson
A pointy nose,
a jagged mouth
And two enormous eyes.
We set it in a window
And we put
a candle in,
Then lit it up
for all to see
Our jack-o’-lantern grin
-Jack Prelutsky
Pompous Mr. Pumpkin
The Pumpkin That Grew
Pompous Mr. Pumpkin,
One time there was a pumpkin,
You needn’t look so wise.
And all the summer through
Perched upon a picket fence
It stayed upon a big green vine
Staring with your eyes—
And grew, and grew, and grew.
Needn’t think that I’m afraid
It grew from being small and green
Of your fearful frown
To being big and yellow
Or your great big glaring teeth
And then it said unto itself,
Or your mouth, turned down;
“Now I’m a handsome fellow!”
Mr. Pumpkin, run from you?
And then one day it grew a mouth,
No, sir—no, indeed—
A nose, and two big eyes!
Because I knew you long ago
And so that pumpkin grew into
When you were just a seed!
A jack-o’-lantern wise!
-Elsie Mekchert Fowler
-M. Lucille Ford
Two Yellow Pumpkins
The Jack-O’-Lantern
Once there were two yellow pumpkins,
Billy brought a pumpkin in
Growing on a vine;
And Mother scraped it out.
And they said to one another,
Daddy carved a little mouth
“Aren’t we just fine!
Wonder what to us will happen
When we go from here.
With such a funny pout.
Sally cut some crooked eyes
And trimmed the thing with beads,
Will we be turned to chariots golden
And travel far and near?”
One day there came into the cornfield
A little girl and boy;
While everybody laughed at me
Because I saved the seeds.
But I will plant them in the spring
Each one seized a yellow pumpkin,
And wait till fall, and then—
As though it were some toy.
I’ll have at least a hundred
Said Boy, “I’ll make a jack-o’-lantern.
Jack-o’-lantern men!
Now won’t that be great?
-Florence Lind
His face shall be so big and funny.
He’ll surely be first rate.”
Said she, “I’ll bake my yellow pumpkin
Into a pie so nice;
Then let me share your jack-o’-lantern,
And I’ll give you a slice.”
And so, that night when all was quiet
At least for Halloween—
They sat beside the jack-o’-lantern.
With the golden pie between.
-Blanche A. Steinhaven
Unhappy Pumpkin
The pumpkin was unhappy, for
He did not want to stay
Tied to a vine, beneath the corn,
And never go away.
He wished he were the sun, so he
Could roll around the sky.
“If I keep growing like him, I
May get there by and by.”
Though he grew big and yellow, he
Was not the sun. Instead
He became a jack-o’-lantern
With a candle in his head.