Need the name of a poem

[nicwat22]

I learnt a poem when I was a child about 20 plus years and I really want to know what it was. The first line was:

Across the open moorland the rain was falling.

Then it says something about a goblin wandering past.

That's all I know. Can anyone help?

[jeanyb]

Hi nicwat22 - I think this is it
The Selfish Goblin

Upon the open moorland
The rain was falling fast,
As through the dripping heather
A goblin hurried past.

His eyes were small and cunning,
His hair was very red,
He had a green umbrella
He held above his head.

He chanced to meet a fairy
Whose clothes were very wet,
And as she had no umbrella
He wished they had not met.

"O please, will you allow me?
The weary fairy cried
"To share your green umbrella,
By keeping at your side?"

"Pooh! Nonsense!" said the goblin,
"Can you not plainly see
That underneath my umbrella
Is only room for me?"

"Goodbye" he went off quickly,
His clothes completely dry,
And left the little fairy
To sit alone and cry.

But as he crossed the moorland
The wind, with angry din
Took hold of his umbrella
And turned it outside in.

"Hurrah!" exclaimed the hedgehog,
"I am extremely glad!
I saw your mean behaviour,
It nearly drove me mad!"

He rolled the goblin over
And then he hurried back
To guide the little fairy
Upon her homeward track.

And left the selfish goblin
To try with labour vain
To mend his green umbrella
That let in all the rain.

[Vulpes]

I too recited this poem when I was about 5 or 6 just after WWII and the first response received is virtually word for word as I recall it - with minor variations. However there is one verse missing. It is verse 5, before the one starting "Pooh! Nonsense!" and it goes thus -

I wandered from the pathway
As I was going home
Oh dear, Oh dear, I'm frightened
Don't leave me all alone"

The poem is very old and appears in Ethel Coxhead's "Birds and Babies" published in the last half of the 19th Century.

[Ionadragon]

My mother learnt this poem in about 1905. As her father had died she was sent to the Comercial Travellers School in Pinner in Middlesex just before her 5th birthday, to join her brother and sister. As she was the youngest girl in the school she had to recite a poem on Founders day and this is one of the poems she learned.

[flamingfury]

The name of the poem is The Selfish Goblin and the poem is -

Upon the open moorland
The rain was falling fast,
As through the dripping heather
A goblin hurried past.

His eyes were small and cunning,
His hair was very red,
He had a green umbrella
He held above his head.

He chanced to meet a fairy
Whose clothes were very wet,
And as she had no umbrella
He wished they had not met.

"O please, will you allow me?
The weary fairy cried
"To share your green umbrella,
By keeping at your side?"

"Pooh! Nonsense!" said the goblin,
"Can you not plainly see
That underneath my umbrella
Is only room for me?"

"Goodbye" he went off quickly,
His clothes completely dry,
And left the little fairy
To sit alone and cry.

But as he crossed the moorland
The wind, with angry din
Took hold of his umbrella
And turned it outside in.

"Hurrah!" exclaimed the hedgehog,
"I am extremely glad!
I saw your mean behavior,
It nearly drove me mad!"

He rolled the goblin over
And then he hurried back
To guide the little fairy
Upon her homeward track.

And left the selfish goblin
To try with labor vain
To mend his green umbrella
That let in all the rain.

This one is written by Robert Louis Stevenson(R.L. Stevenson)