The poem consists of nine stanzas, each of six lines. Each stanza contains alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, with the trimetric lines rhyming with each other. Each verse is scattered around the novel Sylvie and Bruno, with eight verses in the first volume and one in the second, Sylvie and Bruno Concluded.
Text
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He thought he saw a Buffalo / Upon the chimney-pieceHe thought he saw a Kangaroo / That worked a coffee-millHippopotamus descending from a busIllustration of the "Bear without a Head"He thought he saw an Albatross / That fluttered round the lamp
He thought he saw an Elephant,
That practised on a fife:
He looked again, and found it was
A letter from his wife.
"At length I realise," he said,
"The bitterness of Life!"
He thought he saw a Buffalo
Upon the chimney-piece:
He looked again, and found it was
His Sister's Husband's Niece.
"Unless you leave this house," he said,
"I'll send for the Police!"
He thought he saw a Rattlesnake
That questioned him in Greek:
He looked again, and found it was
The Middle of Next Week.
"The one thing I regret," he said,
"Is that it cannot speak!"
He thought he saw a Banker's Clerk
Descending from the bus:
He looked again, and found it was
A Hippopotamus.
"If this should stay to dine," he said,
"There won't be much for us!"
He thought he saw a Kangaroo
That worked a coffee-mill:
He looked again, and found it was
A Vegetable-Pill.
"Were I to swallow this," he said,
"I should be very ill!"
He thought he saw a Coach-and-Four
That stood beside his bed:
He looked again, and found it was
A Bear without a Head.
"Poor thing," he said, "poor silly thing!
It's waiting to be fed!"
He thought he saw an Albatross
That fluttered round the lamp:
He looked again, and found it was
A Penny-Postage-Stamp.
"You'd best be getting home," he said:
"The nights are very damp!"
He thought he saw a Garden-Door
That opened with a key:
He looked again, and found it was A double Rule of Three:
"And all its mystery," he said,
"Is clear as day to me!"
He thought he saw an Argument
That proved he was the Pope
He looked again, and found it was
A Bar of Mottled Soap.
"A fact so dread," he faintly said,
"Extinguishes all hope!"[3]
Reception
In his Bright Dreams Journal, Gary R. Hess called the poem "the only bright part of the book."[4]
In The Aesthetics of Children's Poetry: A Study of Children's Verse in English, Katherine Wakely-Mulroney described the poem as "an incantatory, cyclical poem which reflects and even prefigures aspects of the prose narrative."[5]
Adaptations
"The Mad Gardener's Song" featured on the BBC show Play School in 1981.[6]
Composer Stuart Findlay set "The Mad Gardener's Song" to viola, clarinet and piano in 1994.[7][8]
