When in school, we had to memorize a poem and say it before the class.
The teacher probably had no idea but maybe a hope that if just one of the students got a liking for poetry, then her job was done.
My. Great grandmother wrote poems so maybe I got my affection for poetry from her...
This is one of my favorites from a very young age....
***************************
Whose woods these are, I think I know, his house is in the village though.
He will not see me stopping here to watch his woods fill up with snow..
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the wood and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sounds the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep
And I have miles to go before I sleep,
And I have miles to go before I sleep.
Robert Frost
Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening
The teacher probably had no idea but maybe a hope that if just one of the students got a liking for poetry, then her job was done.
My. Great grandmother wrote poems so maybe I got my affection for poetry from her...
This is one of my favorites from a very young age....
***************************
Whose woods these are, I think I know, his house is in the village though.
He will not see me stopping here to watch his woods fill up with snow..
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the wood and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sounds the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep
And I have miles to go before I sleep,
And I have miles to go before I sleep.
Robert Frost
Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening
Having taught that for years, I've unconsciously memorized it, too.
ReplyDeleteTeacher question: Can you guess what the date was that the speaker stopped to look at the snow?
Also, as pretty as these images are, this is actually a poem about death.
I memorized it for school and he became one of my favorite poets..Why "about death"?
ReplyDeleteHe had suffered the loss of his sons ,but I never think of death when reading this...although he had terrible losses so it isn't surprising...
The "darkest evening of the year", whatever that date is.
Winter Solstice is the darkest evening of the year, right?
DeleteHis poem Nothing gold can stay is the only one I’ve memorized. I love his poems
ReplyDeleteLisa,thank you! I'm going to look it up now!
ReplyDeleteThank you,Lisa !
ReplyDeleteNature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
Think this was the first poem I had to analyze under the aegis of the Jesuits. Thanks to their pedagogical expertise, each time I see it I rush back to that uncomfortable 9th grade desk...
ReplyDeleteI loved it the first time I read it and it has remained my favorite all these years.
ReplyDeleteLol Seamus.. I have too many memories from school that I would like to forget but I find myself thankful these days for any memories I have.
ReplyDeleteThis one was not a bad one:)
But there were no Jesuits involved lol.