Jack Frost Lyrics
The frost decides to work in silence, unlike the noisy wind and snow, and spends one still night powdering a mountain, dressing the trees and covering a lake with ice. Then he plays one small trick in the cupboard. Three verses of eight lines.
Jack Frost
The Frost looked forth on a still, clear night,
And whispered, "Now, I shall be out of sight;
So through the valley and over the height
In silence I'll take my way.
I will not go on like that blustering train,
The wind and the snow, the hail and the rain,
That make such a bustle and noise in vain;
But I'll be as busy as they!"
So he flew to the mountain and powdered its crest;
He lit on the trees, and their boughs he dressed
With diamonds and pearls; and over the breast
Of the quivering lake he spread
A coat of mail, that it need not fear
The glittering point of many a spear
Which he hung on its margin, far and near,
Where a rock could rear its head.
But he did one thing that was hardly fair -
He peeped in the cupboard; and finding there
That all had forgotten for him to prepare -
"Now just to set them a-thinking,
I'll bite this basket of fruit," said he,
"This costly pitcher I'll burst in three!
And the glass of water they've left for me,
Shall 'tchick' to tell them I'm drinking."
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/jack-frost/
- Type
- Poems for Children
- Written by
- Hannah Flagg Gould
- Tune
- Read slowly and quietly at first, with a brighter voice for the sparkling verse and a sly one for the last
- Best for ages
- 5 to 10 years
What Does Jack Frost Mean?
The poem treats the frost as a person who works at night. In the first verse he whispers that he will go "in silence", not like the "blustering train" of wind, snow, hail and rain, who make "such a bustle and noise in vain". Instead he will be just as busy, only quiet.
The work begins in the next verse. He powders the mountain top and dresses the tree branches with "diamonds and pearls", which are the sparkling frost crystals. The lake gets "a coat of mail", a covering made of linked metal rings that knights wore, which is the poem's way of describing a sheet of ice. The "glittering point of many a spear" that he hangs at the edge is most likely icicles.
In the last verse the frost does something "hardly fair": he looks in the cupboard, finds that nobody has left him anything, and decides to nip the fruit and crack the pitcher and the glass of water "to tell them I'm drinking". Water left standing in a freezing night turns to ice, and ice can crack the glass, so the joke is true to life.
History and Origin
Hannah Flagg Gould, an American poet, wrote this poem, and the book here gives her name under it. Another children's reader of the early 1900s, Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories, prints it as "The Frost" with a few words changed. The copy on this page is from a children's songbook first published in 1884 and revised in 1911. The page gives three of the poem's four verses.
Learning Activities
- Breath clouds: on a cold morning, breathe out slowly outdoors and watch the cloud your breath makes, then talk about how cold it must be.
- Quiet worker: have the children move around the room as silently as possible, like the frost, and see who makes no sound at all.
- Sparkle painting: brush glue on dark paper and sprinkle salt or glitter on it for the frosty trees.
- Water test: put a little water in a plastic cup in the freezer overnight and look at the ice in the morning.