The Sugar-Plum Tree Lyrics
A tree grows by the Lollipop sea in the garden of Shut-Eye Town, and the way to shake down its sugar-plums is to ask a gingerbread dog to bark at a chocolate cat. The poem is a bedtime promise: close your eyes and the speaker will rock you there.
The Sugar-Plum Tree
Have you ever heard of the Sugar-Plum Tree?
'Tis a marvel of great renown!
It blooms on the shore of the Lollipop sea
In the garden of Shut-Eye Town;
The fruit that it bears is so wondrously sweet
(As those who have tasted it say)
That good little children have only to eat
Of that fruit to be happy next day.
When you've got to the tree, you would have a hard time
To capture the fruit which I sing;
The tree is so tall that no person could climb
To the boughs where the sugar-plums swing!
But up in that tree sits a chocolate cat,
And a gingerbread dog prowls below -
And this is the way you contrive to get at
Those sugar-plums tempting you so:
You say but the word to that gingerbread dog
And he barks with such terrible zest
That the chocolate cat is at once all agog,
As her swelling proportions attest.
And the chocolate cat goes cavorting around
From this leafy limb unto that,
And the sugar-plums tumble, of course, to the ground -
Hurrah for that chocolate cat!
There are marshmallows, gumdrops, and peppermint canes,
With stripings of scarlet or gold,
And you carry away of the treasure that rains
As much as your apron can hold!
So come, little child, cuddle closer to me
In your dainty white nightcap and gown,
And I'll rock you away to that Sugar-Plum Tree
In the garden of Shut-Eye Town.
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/the-sugar-plum-tree/
- Type
- Poems for Children, Lullabies
- Written by
- Eugene Field
- Tune
- Read slowly and sweetly, like a bedtime story
- Best for ages
- 2 to 7 years
What Does The Sugar-Plum Tree Mean?
Four verses build one dream. The first describes the tree: it blooms by the Lollipop sea in Shut-Eye Town, and good children have only to eat its fruit to be happy the next day. The second explains the problem: the tree is too tall to climb, and at the top sits a chocolate cat while a gingerbread dog prowls below. The third gives the trick. Say the word to the dog and he barks with terrible zest; the cat is all agog and goes cavorting from limb to limb, shaking sugar-plums down. The fourth shows what falls: marshmallows, gumdrops and striped peppermint canes, as much as an apron can hold.
A sugar-plum is a small sweet, a seed or nut coated in sugar; it is not really a plum. Agog means eager and excited, and cavorting means leaping about playfully. Zest is energy, and contrive means to manage or find a way. Shut-Eye Town is not on any map, because it is the place you reach when your eyes shut and sleep begins.
The final lines are the lullaby part. The speaker asks the little child to cuddle closer in a white nightcap and gown, and promises to rock them off to the garden of Shut-Eye Town.
History and Origin
Eugene Field (1850 to 1895) was an American writer who worked for newspapers in Chicago and wrote many poems for children. This poem is in his Poems of Childhood, published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1904, nine years after his death. The book's copyright notes show that it gathers poems from his earlier collections of 1892 and 1894.
His best-known bedtime poem is Wynken, Blynken and Nod, which is also on this site.
Learning Activities
- Draw the tree: draw the sugar-plum tree with the chocolate cat at the top, the gingerbread dog below and the candy that falls.
- Candy list: list the sweets that rain from the tree: marshmallows, gumdrops, peppermint canes, and ask which one a child would pick first.
- Bark and cavort: let the child be the dog and bark softly, then be the cat and tiptoe around the room.
- Rock to sleep: use it as a bedtime poem, reading the last four lines slowly and quietly.