Away to the River Lyrics
A speaker heads for the river and the woods while the grass is green and the berries are good. There are buzzing insects, bloodroot and wild daffodils, a buttercup to colour the chin and a basket for the berries. Two verses of four lines.
Away to the River
Away to the river, away to the wood,
While the grasses are green and the berries are good!
Where the locusts are scraping their fiddles and bows,
And the bees keep a-coming wherever one goes.
Oh, it's off to the river and off to the hills,
To the land of the bloodroot and wild daffodils,
With a buttercup blossom to color my chin,
And a basket of burs to put sandberries in.
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/away-to-the-river/
- Type
- Poems for Children
- Written by
- Leroy F. Jackson
- Tune
- Easy and swinging, like a walk, with a lift on each away
- Best for ages
- 3 to 8 years
What Does Away to the River Mean?
The poem is about setting off, and every line adds something to see or hear on the way. The first verse is the sounds: grass, berries, and locusts scraping their fiddles and bows, a picture of loud summer insects sounding like players at a concert. The bees keep coming "wherever one goes".
The second verse names what grows there. Bloodroot is a wild spring flower with white petals, named for the red juice in its root. Wild daffodils are yellow trumpet flowers. A buttercup blossom held up to "color my chin" leaves a yellow glow on the skin, and burs are prickly seed cases that cling to clothes. The last line sets out with "a basket of burs to put sandberries in"; sandberries are a kind of wild berry.
The two verses are made to match, each beginning with a call to go to the river and ending on what to collect. Wood rhymes with good, and hills with daffodils.
History and Origin
Several of the plants in the poem, such as bloodroot, are wildflowers of eastern North America, so the poem points to an American setting. It appeared in Leroy F. Jackson's 1918 collection of rhymes.
Not all of his verses are nonsense. A few, like this one, simply describe a summer outing the way a child who loves being outdoors might.
Learning Activities
- Nature basket: take a basket on a walk and collect fallen leaves, seed heads and stones, but pick no flowers.
- Buttercup glow: if buttercups grow nearby, hold one under a child's chin and look at the yellow shine, then leave it where it grows.
- Sound walk: stand still outdoors and list every summer sound, from bees to rustling grass.
- Bur observation: look at a bur on a sock or dog's coat and see how it holds on.