Now We Are Six

Now We Are Six

In this poem, a young child recounts the previous five years and how life was just beginning. But six, oh, six is the best year.

When I was one,
I had just begun.
When I was two,
I was nearly new.
When I was three,
I was hardly me.
When I was four,
I was not much more.
When I was five,
I was just alive.
But now I am six,
I'm as clever as clever.
So I think I'll be six
Now and forever.

Alan Alexander Milne was an English author who lived between 1882 and 1956. Milne, was best known for his books about the teddy bear, Winnie-the-Pooh, which was inspired by his sons', Christopher Robin Milne's stuffed animals.

Milne used to makeup bedtime stories to help his son go to sleep. He used many of the stuffed animals in Billy's room as inspiration. One day, while visiting the London Zoological Gardens Billy had a "meet and greet" with a very tame bear from Winnipeg, Manitoba name Winnie. Billy bottle fed Winnie and played with him in his cage. When Milne was pressured into writing children's stories and he used things around him for inspiration.

He was also known for his various children's poems. Milne was a noted writer, primarily as a playwright, before the huge success of Pooh overshadowed all his previous work. Milne was unique as a writer because while others wrote about harsh realities, Milne created a whimsical reality full of friendship and laughter.

Milne attended Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied on a mathematics scholarship. While in College, he edited and wrote for Granta, a student magazine. He collaborated with his brother Kenneth and their articles appeared over the initials AKM. Milne's work came to the attention of the leading British humor magazine Punch, where Milne was to become a contributor and later an assistant editor.

- By A.A. Milne.