What is the name of the poem spoken of in Dickens' Christmas Carol with forty children conducting themselves like one?

Answer 1

The actual line in "A Christmas Carol" is"unlike the celebrated herd in the poem, they were not forty children conducting themselveslike one, but every child was conducting itself life forty."

Dickens is referring to the poem by William Wordsworth called "Written in March", where the cattle (herd) were conducting themselves as one in their spring grazing.

Written in March

The cock is crowing,

The stream is flowing,

The small birds twitter,

The lake doth glitter

The green field sleeps in the sun;

The oldest and youngest

Are at work with the strongest;

The cattle are grazing,

Their heads never raising;

There are forty feeding like one!

Like an army defeated

The snow hath retreated,

And now doth fare ill

On the top of the bare hill;

The plowboy is whooping- anon-anon:

There's joy in the mountains;

There's life in the fountains;

Small clouds are sailing,

Blue sky prevailing;

The rain is over and gone!

William Wordsworth

Answer 2

The poem mentioned in Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" is "The story of The Babes in the Wood" with the forty children acting as a single wistful child.