Vespers (poem)
The poem was set to music by Harold Fraser-Simson in 1927 and, under the name Christopher Robin is Saying His Prayers, many commercial recordings of the song were released including by Gracie Fields and Vera Lynn.
[1] He gave Daphne the poem as a present suggesting she could sell it and keep any proceeds so she sent it to Vanity Fair in New York who paid her $50 and published it in January 1923.
Lucas' invitation to write regularly for Punch[note 1] but instead he submitted "Vespers" as one (the first written) of a batch of poems for possible publication by Methuen.
[note 2] It was in considerable part due to Lucas that E.H. Shephard was chosen to illustrate the resulting book When We Were Very Young in which "Vespers" is the last poem.
[9][10] "Vespers"[note 3] consists of six quatrain stanzas, with the first and last identically worded and describing the general scene of a little boy kneeling by his bed as if in prayer.
The intermediate stanzas focus on the child, Christopher Robin, ostensibly praying but actually peeping through half-closed eyes and, with his short attention span, his mind often turning to the events of the day.
[7] Humphrey Carpenter remarks that "Vespers" was produced at the very end of the 50-year Victorian—Edwardian tradition for writing about the "Beautiful Child" in sentimental terms.
[16] Many nurseries went on to have a printed copy of the poem hanging up on the wall with the notice appended "Reprinted by permission from the Library of the Queen's Dolls".
[3] Harold Fraser-Simson set "Vespers" to music under the title "Christopher Robin is Saying His Prayers" and, starting in 1933, many commercial recordings were released including by Gracie Fields in 1938 and Vera Lynn[note 6] in 1948.
[21] A manuscript version of the poem and illustration, probably drafted as a working drawing for the publisher to inspect, was sold at auction in 2015 for £35,000.
In 1990 Ann Thwaite explained that the poem was intentionally ironic with the prayer meaning nothing to the boy – or to Milne himself, who was not religious.
"[22] He wrote of his own thoughts about God:[28] To conceive the Creator and Inspirer of the universe as anything less tremendous, less terrible, less beautiful, less life-giving than the Sun, is, to me, ridiculous.
[29][note 8] Harold Fraser-Simson set four of the poems, including "Vespers", to music and it was arranged for a recording to be made at HMV studios of seven-year-old Christopher singing them.
