Pompous Mr. Pumpkin

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Figure 1 - Pumpkins, pumkins, and pumkins, Concord, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2014

Figure 1 – Pumpkins, pumpkins, and pumpkins, Concord, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2014

This is amazing!  I cannot believe that I have found this.  Back in the dinosaur ages when I was in Miss Muller’s (she was a sweetie) second grade class, we had to memorize a poem for Halloween.  Honestly, my mother and my sister had it down way before I did.  It was the first thing that I ever had to memorize, and I delivered it with histrionic exuberance.

“Pompous Mr. Pumpkin

Pompous Mr. Pumpkin,

You needn’t look so wise.

Perched upon a picket fence

Staring with your eyes—

Needn’t think that I’m afraid

Of your fearful frown

Or your great big glaring teeth

Or your mouth, turned down;

Mr. Pumpkin, run from you?

No, sir—no, indeed—

Because I knew you long ago

When you were just a seed!”

-Elsie Mekchert Fowler

This fall is such a wonderful season for pumpkins: orange pumpkins, pink pumpkins, smooth pumpkins and warted pumpkins.

Figure 2 - Warted pumpkin, Concord, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2014.

Figure 2 – Warted pumpkin, Concord, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2014.

2 thoughts on “Pompous Mr. Pumpkin”

  1. Wonderful pumpkin pictures. The rhyme is so precious, in the deprecating sense, and so typical of the first half of the last century, as well as the whole century before it, don’t you think? Sort of like Bette Davis’s rendition of “I’ve Written a Letter to Daddy” in WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?

  2. It is such fun to find this old poem again. And the photos are just plain spectacular. I never saw an ugly pumpkin! thank you for the poem.
    Madeline Stine, Denver CO

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