King Kokem Lyrics
King Kokem naps on his brass bed with his shoes on, and dreams three dreams: tame lions and lamb-chops frying on a griddle, a sea of raspberry pop with an iced island, and a sky where the moon plays a fiddle. Between the lines a fiddle is asked to play.
King Kokem
King Kokem lay snoozing upon his brass bed,
Oh, play an old tune on your fiddle!
With shoes on his feet, and a crown on his head,
Oh, tune up your rusty old fiddle!
He dreamed of a land where the lions were tame,
Where they fried their lamb-chops on a griddle,
Where they called all the parrots and monkeys by name,
Oh, play us a tune on your fiddle!
He dreamed of a sea filled with raspberry pop,
With a cocoanut isle in the middle,
Where the stones and the boulders had icing on top,
Go strike up a tune on your fiddle!
He dreamed of a sky where the moonbeams all danced
While a comet was telling a riddle,
Where the stars and the planets and sun-dogs all pranced
While the moon played his fiddle de diddle.
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/king-kokem/
- Type
- Poems for Children
- Written by
- Leroy F. Jackson
- Tune
- A jig tune, with the fiddle line sung bright and bouncy
- Best for ages
- 3 to 8 years
Hand Motions and Actions
| When you sing | Do this |
|---|---|
| Oh, play an old tune on your fiddle! | Hold one arm out as the fiddle and saw the other hand across it. |
| He dreamed of a sea filled with raspberry pop | Wiggle your fingers like waves, then pretend to take a sip. |
What Does King Kokem Mean?
After the opening verse, each verse is one dream, and each dream turns something ordinary upside down. In the first dream the lions are tame and lamb-chops are fried on a griddle, a flat pan for cooking on a stove. In the second the sea is not water but raspberry pop, a fizzy drink, with an island of coconut and stones with icing on top. In the third the sky is a ballroom: the moonbeams dance, a comet tells a riddle and the planets prance. Sun-dogs are the bright spots that sometimes shine beside the sun in cold, icy air.
The fiddle lines are a refrain. In each of the first three verses someone calls for a tune, and the last verse gives the moon a fiddle of his own, which is the poem's own joke: the king dreams of music, so the music is in the dream too.
History and Origin
The poem is by Leroy F. Jackson, whose book of rhymes for children has a copyright date of 1918. The king dozing in his shoes and crown is part of the joke.
Learning Activities
- Draw a dream: let each child pick one of the three dreams and draw it, including the island with icing on its stones.
- Make your own verse: start with He dreamed of a and fill in a land, a sea or a sky, with one silly thing in it.
- Fiddle clap: clap the rhythm of the fiddle lines while an adult says the rest.
- Topsy-turvy talk: ask what would be different if the sea were made of something else, and what you would need to swim in it.