A Motherless Soft Lambkin Lyrics
A young lamb stands alone on a hill with no mother's fleece to wrap it from the cold. The speaker promises to run to it, comfort it, fetch it and feed it until it grows strong and bold.
A Motherless Soft Lambkin
A motherless soft lambkin
Alone upon a hill;
No mother's fleece to shelter him
And wrap him from the cold: -
I'll run to him and comfort him,
I'll fetch him, that I will;
I'll care for him and feed him
Until he's strong and bold.
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/a-motherless-soft-lambkin/
- Type
- Poems for Children, Animal Rhymes
- Written by
- Christina Rossetti
- Tune
- Tender, then determined, with the promises said firmly
- Best for ages
- 3 to 8 years
What Does A Motherless Soft Lambkin Mean?
A lambkin is a little lamb; the ending -kin means small. The lamb is motherless, so it has no "mother's fleece", the warm wool coat of a sheep, to shelter it from the cold on the hill. The first four lines set the scene. The last four are the speaker's promises: "I'll run to him and comfort him, I'll fetch him, that I will; I'll care for him and feed him until he's strong and bold."
The poem is about kindness toward a young animal. It also shows how the speaker moves from seeing a problem to doing something about it, in five steps: run, comfort, fetch, care and feed.
History and Origin
The poem is one of the short pieces in Rossetti's Sing-Song (1872), and it is a verse of kindness to a young animal.
Learning Activities
- Five promises: hold up a finger for each promise, run, comfort, fetch, care and feed.
- Lamb care: talk about how a farmer helps a lamb that has lost its mother, with a bottle of milk and a warm place.
- Wool test: feel a piece of wool or a woolly jumper and talk about why a fleece keeps a lamb warm.
- Kind actions: ask the child to say one kind thing they could do for a small animal.