The first dated "poem" was written a month before little John Ruskin
reached the age of seven. It is a tale of a mouse, in seven octosyllabic
couplets, "The Needless Alarm," remarkable only for an unexpected
correctness in rhyme, rhythm, and reason.

His early verse owes much to the summer tours, which were prolific in
notes; everything was observed and turned into verse. The other
inspiring source was his father--the household deity of both wife and
child, whose chief delight was in his daily return from the city, and in
his reading to them in the drawing-room at Herne Hill. John was packed
into a recess, where he was out of the way and the draught; he was
barricaded by a little table that held his own materials for amusement,
and if he liked to listen to the reading, he had the chance of hearing
good literature, the chance sometimes of hearing passages from Byron and
Christopher North and Cervantes, rather beyond his comprehension, for
his parents were not of the shockable sort: with all their religion and
strict Scotch morality, they could laugh at a broad jest, as
old-fashioned people could.

So he associated his father and his father's readings with the poetry
of reflection, as he associated the regular summer round with the poetry
of description. As every summer brought its crop of description, so
against the New Year (for, being Scotch, they did not then keep our
Christmas) and against his father's birthday in May he used always to
prepare some little drama or story or "address" of a reflective nature,
beginning with the verses on "Time," written for New Year's Day, 1827.

That year they were again at Perth, and on their way home some early