ABSTRACT
If we take Isaac Watts’s Divine Songs (1715) to be our great original, then the whole notion of children’s poetry as ‘play’ might seem jinxed from the start. In his “Song XXI, Against evil Company,” Watts takes a dim view of all manner of tomfoolery:
Why should I join with those in Play, In whom I’ve no delight, Who curse and swear, but never pray, Who call ill Names, and fight.
