"Little Boy Blue" is a poem by Eugene Field

Eugene Field

Eugene Field, Sr. was an American writer, best known for his children's poetry and humorous essays.-Biography:...

 about the death of a child, a sentimental but beloved theme in 19th century poetry. Contrary to popular belief, the poem is not about the death of Field's son, who died several years after its publication. 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. The poem first appeared in 1888 in the Chicago weekly literary journal, America. Its editor Slason Thompson changed the penultimate line ("That they have never seen our Little Boy Blue") to its present form. The poem was republished by Charles Scribner's Sons

Charles Scribner's Sons

Charles Scribner's Sons, or simply Scribner, is an American publisher based in New York City, known for publishing a number of American authors including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Kurt Vonnegut, Stephen King, Robert A. Heinlein, Thomas Wolfe, George Santayana, John Clellon...

 in 1889 in Field's The Little Book of Western Verse. In 1976, Frank Jacobs wrote a parody of the poem for Mad

Mad (magazine)

Mad is an American humor magazine founded by editor Harvey Kurtzman and publisher William Gaines in 1952. Launched as a comic book before it became a magazine, it was widely imitated and influential, impacting not only satirical media but the entire cultural landscape of the 20th century.The last...

magazine.

Text

The little toy dog is covered with dust,
But sturdy and stanch he stands;
And the little toy soldier is red with rust,
And his musket moulds in his hands.
Time was when the little toy dog was new,
And the soldier was passing fair;
And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue
Kissed them and put them there.

"Now, don't you go till I come," he said,
"And don't you make any noise!"
So, toddling off to his trundle-bed,
He dreamt of the pretty toys;
And, as he was dreaming, an angel song
Awakened our Little Boy Blue---
Oh! the years are many, the years are long,
But the little toy friends are true!

Ay, faithful to Little Boy Blue they stand,
Each in the same old place---
Awaiting the touch of a little hand,
The smile of a little face;
And they wonder, as waiting the long years through
In the dust of that little chair,
What has become of our Little Boy Blue,
Since he kissed them and put them there.