Uploaded January 2019 | Updated September 2026, 40 minutes ago
Timmy Dwight was the son of Rev. Dr. Timothy Dwight, a president of Yale University. Rev Dwight was the first cousin of Henry's first wife Sarah.
The poem is narrated by Byron Nilsson. The music is "Lovely Nancy" from Henry's Music Manuscript Book.
Don Foster's "Author Unknown":
Much of the Major's poetry was written for children and never gathered or published. One compassionate lyric from the 1780s is addressed "To my niece, Sally Livingston, on the death of a little serenading wren she admired"; another, to a young second cousin, Timmy Dwight, a boy as "Blythe as Oberon the fairy." Harry urges the lad to party hard on his birthday, to fill his "cormorantal belly" with hasty-puddings and "charming jelly." Fun stuff, fun poetry. You can't read Major Henry Livingston Jr. and not love the man from the top of his jolly head to the tips of his Poughkeepsie feet. His correspondence and published poems and articles are usually witty, sometimes hilarious, never sarcastic; full of love for humanity and driven by an irrepressible joie de vivre - or to say it more properly in Dutch, levenslust.
Letter sent to master Timmy Dwight
7 ys old Dec. 7. 1785
Master Timmy brisk and airy
Blythe as Oberon the fairy
On thy head thy cousin wishes
Thousand and ten thousand blisses.
Never may thy wicket ball
In a well or puddle fall;
Or thy wild ambitious kite
O'er the Elm's thick foliage light.
When on bended knee thou sittest
And the mark in fancy hittest
May thy marble truly trace
Where thy wishes mark'd the place.
If at hide and seek you play,
All involved in the hay
Titt'ring hear the joyful sound
"Timmy never can be found."
If you hop or if you run
Or whatever is the fun,
Vic'try with her sounding pinion
Hover o'er her little minion.
But when hunger calls the boys
From their helter skelter joys:
Bread and cheese in order standing
For their most rapacious handling
Timmy may thy luncheon be
More than Ben's as five to three.
But if hasty pudding's dish
Meet thy vast capacious wish -
Or lob-lollys charming jelly
Court thy cormorantal belly
Mortal foe to megre fast
Be thy spoonful first & last.
Timmy Dwight was the son of Rev. Dr. Timothy Dwight, a president of Yale University. Rev Dwight was the first cousin of Henry's first wife Sarah.
The poem is narrated by Byron Nilsson. The music is "Lovely Nancy" from Henry's Music Manuscript Book.
Don Foster's "Author Unknown":
Much of the Major's poetry was written for children and never gathered or published. One compassionate lyric from the 1780s is addressed "To my niece, Sally Livingston, on the death of a little serenading wren she admired"; another, to a young second cousin, Timmy Dwight, a boy as "Blythe as Oberon the fairy." Harry urges the lad to party hard on his birthday, to fill his "cormorantal belly" with hasty-puddings and "charming jelly." Fun stuff, fun poetry. You can't read Major Henry Livingston Jr. and not love the man from the top of his jolly head to the tips of his Poughkeepsie feet. His correspondence and published poems and articles are usually witty, sometimes hilarious, never sarcastic; full of love for humanity and driven by an irrepressible joie de vivre - or to say it more properly in Dutch, levenslust.
Letter sent to master Timmy Dwight
7 ys old Dec. 7. 1785
Master Timmy brisk and airy
Blythe as Oberon the fairy
On thy head thy cousin wishes
Thousand and ten thousand blisses.
Never may thy wicket ball
In a well or puddle fall;
Or thy wild ambitious kite
O'er the Elm's thick foliage light.
When on bended knee thou sittest
And the mark in fancy hittest
May thy marble truly trace
Where thy wishes mark'd the place.
If at hide and seek you play,
All involved in the hay
Titt'ring hear the joyful sound
"Timmy never can be found."
If you hop or if you run
Or whatever is the fun,
Vic'try with her sounding pinion
Hover o'er her little minion.
But when hunger calls the boys
From their helter skelter joys:
Bread and cheese in order standing
For their most rapacious handling
Timmy may thy luncheon be
More than Ben's as five to three.
But if hasty pudding's dish
Meet thy vast capacious wish -
Or lob-lollys charming jelly
Court thy cormorantal belly
Mortal foe to megre fast
Be thy spoonful first & last.
