The City Mouse Lives in a House Lyrics
Two small verses set a city mouse beside a garden mouse. One lives in a house and eats bread and cheese; the other lives in a leafy bower among frogs, toads and flowers and eats whatever he can find. The poet ends by saying nobody will grudge him his seeds.
The City Mouse Lives in a House
The city mouse lives in a house;
The garden mouse lives in a bower,
He's friendly with the frogs and toads,
And sees the pretty plants in flower.
The city mouse eats bread and cheese;
The garden mouse eats what he can;
We will not grudge him seeds and stalks,
Poor little timid furry man.
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/the-city-mouse-lives-in-a-house/
- Type
- Poems for Children, Animal Rhymes
- Written by
- Christina Rossetti
- Tune
- Even and tender, with a small pause at the end of each verse
- Best for ages
- 3 to 8 years
What Does The City Mouse Lives in a House Mean?
Here are two mice, a pair that children may know from the town mouse and country mouse story. The poem does not tell a story about them. It sets them side by side. The city mouse has a house and bread and cheese. The garden mouse has a bower, a shady shelter made by leaves and branches, and the company of frogs and toads. He sees "the pretty plants in flower" and eats "what he can".
The last two lines turn to the reader: we will not grudge him seeds and stalks. To grudge is to resent that someone has something, so the poet says that it is fine for the garden mouse to have his simple food. The last line calls him a poor little timid furry man. Here poor is a word of kindness, close to the way a child says "poor little thing", and timid means shy and easily frightened. Calling a mouse a "man" is a small joke in the same warm voice.
Both homes are fine for their mouse, and neither is called better. A parent might ask a child which home they would pick and why.
History and Origin
The city mouse and the country mouse have been paired in stories for a very long time. Rossetti's four-line verses do not follow any one of those tellings; she keeps only the pairing and gives it a gentle, unhurried feel. It was printed in her collection Sing-Song in 1872.
On this site a French song tells the same pairing as a story with a fright at the door: Le rat de ville et le rat des champs.
Learning Activities
- Two homes: draw the house with bread and cheese on one side of a page, and the leafy bower with frogs and flowers on the other.
- Which would you choose? ask each child which mouse they would like to be, and let them say why.
- Bower building: make a bower for a toy mouse from a scarf draped over two chairs.
- Seeds for the garden mouse: look at some seeds, such as sunflower or poppy, and talk about what a small animal could eat.