Poem of the Day: ‘Jim, Who ran away from his Nurse, and was eaten by a Lion’

Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) was a genius, if geniuses are allowed to be eccentric, grumpy, prejudiced, wicked-tongued, grandly metaphysical, and narrowly focused. Hardly any of his 150 books survives in popular memory — except perhaps his 1907 “Cautionary Tales for Children.” And that may be a fitting thing. These are among the best poems in a genre that began among the Victorians and would flourish over the next century: poems about children coming to horrible ends, offered for the delectation of child readers. Just take the one that tells of “Matilda, Who told lies and was burned to death.” Or “Rebecca, Who slammed doors for fun and perished miserably.” Or “Henry King, Who chewed bits of string and was early cut off in dreadful agonies.” Or today’s Poem of the Day, about “Jim, Who ran away from his Nurse, and was eaten by a Lion.” In these poems for children Belloc is somehow both the stuffy narrating adult, moralizing windily, and the mischievously irritating child whose adventures come to disaster. And what could be a better combination for an eccentric, grumpy, prejudiced, wicked-tongued, grandly metaphysical, and narrowly focused genius?