Little Boy Blue (poem)

"Little Boy Blue" is a poem by Eugene Field about the death of a child, a sentimental but beloved theme in 19th-century poetry.

Field once admitted that the words "Little Boy Blue" occurred to him when he needed a rhyme for the seventh line in the first stanza.

Its editor, Slason Thompson, changed the penultimate line ("That they have never seen our Little Boy Blue") to its present form.

An 1891 song setting of Field's poem by composer Ethelbert Nevin (1862–1901) was made popular by tenor John McCormack.

[2] In 2019, the Texas-based folk band JamisonPriest released the song "Little Boy Blue" using the lyrics of this poem.