Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

 Ann’s sister Jane Taylor (1783-1824) is best-remembered for having written the words to the children’s rhyme ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’, but this poem, written by Ann, is also well-known and has been much imitated and parodied.  It begins:

Who sat and watched my infant head
When sleeping on my cradle bed,
And tears of sweet affection shed?
My Mother,

When pain and sickened 

Who gazed upon my heavy eye,

And wept for fear that I should die?

My Mother,

The poem takes the form of a question-and-answer back-and-forth where the answer is always ‘my mother’. ‘My Mother’ is easy to parody and ridicule as a sentimental encomium to all mothers, but the poem, especially its second stanza, is a reminder that infant mortality was a very real danger in Taylor’s time, with many children not surviving past their first couple of years of life. Being a mother is never an easy business, but mothers in Ann’s time lived with the very real threat that the child they had so lovingly borne and nurtured would never live to see adulthood.

Pic Credit :Google