Favorite Poems, Old and New

Sam and I are thoroughly enjoying the book, Favorite Poems Old and New: Selected For Boys and Girls, that came with Sam's Sonlight Core G.  Sam hasn't shown much interest in poetry until this book. Sometimes, after I finish reading one he tilts his head to the side, his face full of a sweet-boy smile and says, "That was a nice one."

zinnias, just because I love them

I'm going to share some of our favorites with you from time to time.  The first gives me further incentive to keep reading, even when my throat is irritated and parched from all our read alouds.

When Mother Reads Aloud
unknown

When Mother reads aloud, the past
   Seems real as every day;
I hear the tramp of armies vast,
I see the spears and lances cast,
   I join the trilling fray;
Brave knights and ladies fair and proud
I meet when Mother reads aloud.

When Mother reads aloud, far lands
   Seem very near and true;
I cross the desert's gleaming sands,
Or hunt the jungle's prowling bands,
   Or sail the ocean blue.
Far heights, whose peaks the cold mists shroud,
I scale, when Mother reads aloud.

When Mother reads aloud, I long
   For noble deeds to do--
To help the right, redress the wrong;
It seems so easy to be strong,
   So simple to be true.
Oh, thick and fast the visions crowd
My eyes, when Mother reads aloud.


Father
Frances Frost

My father's face is brown with sun,
His body is tall and limber.
His hands are gentle with beast or child
And strong as hardwood timber.

My father's eyes are the colors of sky,
Clear blue or gray as rain:
They change with the swinging change of days
While he watches the weather vane.

That galleon, golden upon our barn,
Veers with the world's four winds.
My father, his eyes on the vane, knows when
To fill our barley bins,

To stack our wood and pile our mows
With redtop and sweet tossed clover.
He captains our farm that rides the winds,
A keen-eyed brown earth-lover. Pin It