In these days of computer software it really isn’t hard to make a family poetry book. I keep all our memorized poems and speeches in a notebook but this summer I hope to turn that into a bound book.
In the meantime, I asked each member of our family to tell me their favorite poems.
And the Winners Are:
Timothy:
Crossing the Bar Tennyson (See below)
To a Mouse Burns
And his all time favorite:
The Donkey
G.K.Chesterton
When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born.
With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil’s walking parody
On all four-footed things.
The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.
Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.
Nicholas:
To Lucasta on Going to War Richard Lovelace
Crossing the Bar Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.
James:
The Highwayman Noyes (link below)
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas….
That is a great line, isn’t it?
Nathaniel:
If Kipling
Keep a’ Goin’ Frank L Stanton
Christopher:
“We Shall Fight” Winston Churchill
St. Crispin’s Day Speech from Henry V William Shakespeare This is an audio link. Please don’t miss listening to it. I feel teary every single time I hear it.
Benjamin:
Paul Revere’s Ride Longfellow,
Redwall poems
Emily:
The Bee is Not Afraid of Me Emily Dickinson
THE BEE is not afraid of me,
I know the butterfly;
The pretty people in the woods
Receive me cordially.
The brooks laugh louder when I come,
The breezes madder play.
Wherefore, mine eyes, thy silver mists?
Wherefore, O summer’s day?
Andrew :
The Knight Whose Armour Didn’t Squeak AA Milne Scroll down or enjoy some other lovely poems along the way.
SONG FOR SNOWY WEATHER AA Milne
The more it
Snows-tiddley-pom
The more it
Goes-tiddley-pom
The more it
Goes-tiddley-pom
on
Snowing.
And Nobody
Knows-tiddley-pom,
How cold my
Toes-tiddley-pom
Are Growing.
Alex:
Alex can’t quite get his mind around what I am talking about. He has just narrated to me almost every Pooh story and told me each was his favorite. “You know the one where Pooh spills honey?” or “You know where Pooh goes hunting with Piglet?” “I like the one with Tigger and what’s his name…..Roo.”
Let’s just say his favorite poet is AA Milne.
Tim:
Song of the Chattahoochie Sidney Lanier which begins “Out of the hills of Habersham,” and Tim loves those hills.
November Elizabeth Coatsworth,
The Highwayman Alfred Noyes as recited by George Grant.
Cindy:
Thomas Gray Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,
The Cotter’s Saturday Night Burns,
Jenny Kissed Me Leigh Hunt,
Lucy II Wordsworth
She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove;
A maid whom there were none to praise,
And very few to love.
A violet by a mossy stone
Half-hidden from the eye!
—Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.
She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and, O!
The difference to me!
So there they are: our family favorites.
What is your favorite poem?
