Little Toy Soldier

Little Toy Soldier

Little toy soldier, how are you?
Do you come often or are you new?
I’ve been here for all my life;
Their forgetful stares, cut like a knife.

Little toy soldier, why are you here?
Why do you sit upon that pier?
Don’t you know that your wood can’t take the sea?
Don’t you know you’ll be ruined, just like me?

Little toy solider, why can’t you see
That your death, could have been so timely?
Because you couldn’t jump, you’ll stay in this store;
Stay with me forever, and evermore.

Little toy soldier, where did you go?
Did they buy you? I don’t hope so!
But now I’m alone, all by myself.
With only myself; I keep to me, upon this lonely shelf.

Where am I? Did I die?
I can’t see. The light is as lost as I.
Am I in a box? Am I going home?
Am I going to have a friend that I can call my own?

As the heavens part, I find to my disdain
A working man, unsympathetic to my pain.
He cleans me up, and sets me aside.
Aside on a shelf, I keep my own time to abide.

Where did my home go? Where am I now?
I look out the window; I wonder how.
How did I get close to my pier?
I want to jump, have I anything to fear?

So now I sit here by myself,
Upon this lonely, lonely shelf.
My loneliness: it has again begun;
I have no one, not a soul, not a single one.

I see the passersby walking down
From their jobs; to this lonely, lonely town;
Into the simple store of mine, a girl walks in
She walks in, with a sweet, gentle grin.

She talks to the man who runs the store;
I hear that I am well adored.
She picks me up, yet drops me down.
She frowns, as I fall to the ground.

A splinter that the store keeper missed
Was lodged in her thumb, which was being tenderly kissed.
She shed a tear, and ran right out of the store in pain,
And fled the store to my disdain.

The store keeper picks my broken body up;
With a saddened face, he drinks his cup.
His age-darkened cup is filled with his favorite wine.
He sets me down while turning the store sign.

The store is closed; I’m all alone.
Alone in the dark, there’s no better home.
In my home, I keep to myself;
Myself do I keep, upon my own, little shelf.

I really miss that toy solider.
He truly was like no other.
I look out at night, and to my fright
The toy, himself, runs into the night.

The toy soldier is on the dock
The sea turns within his eyes, and he’s on lock.
He sits on the pier, ever so quietly;
Quietly, he falls into the sea.

I’m glad that toy had taken my advice,
Dying at sea, seems to be pretty nice.
My only wish was that I too had gone
Out into the sea, on the water’s surface, to die upon.

Into the night, there came a man
In black; he stole all that he can.
Fortunately for me, he was very clumsy;
He propped the door, so very ajar for me.

Like a rat that is preyed upon in the depths of night,
I fled. I fled. I fled and with all my might,
I made a flight to the pier; my end was near.
So very near, I had absolutely nothing to fear.