Bed In Summer (due 8/27)
By Robert Louis Stevenson
In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer, quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.
I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people's feet
Still going past me in the street.
And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?Autumn (due 9/10)
by Emily Dickinson
The morns are meeker than they were,
The nuts are getting brown;
The berry's cheek is plumper,
The rose is out of town.
The maple wears a gayer scarf,
The field a scarlet gown.
Lest I should be old-fashioned,
I'll put a trinket on.
Who Has Seen the Wind? (due 9/24)
by Christina Rossetti
Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you:
But when the leaves hang trembling,
The wind is passing through.
Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I:
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.Something Told the Wild Geese (due 10/8)
by Rachel Field
Something told the wild geese
It was time to go.
Though the fields lay golden
Something whispered,—‘Snow.’
Leaves were green and stirring,
Berries, luster-glossed,
But beneath warm feathers
Something cautioned,—‘Frost.’
All the sagging orchards
Steamed with amber spice,
But each wild breast stiffened
At remembered ice.
Something told the wild geese
It was time to fly,—
Summer sun was on their wings,
Winter in their cry.
Hurt No Living Thing (due 10/29)
by Rachel Field
Hurt no living thing:
Ladybird, nor butterfly,
Nor moth with dusty wing,
Nor cricket chirping cheerily,
Nor grasshopper so light of leap,
Nor dancing gnat, nor beetle fat,
Nor harmless worms that creep.
Bee! I'm Expecting You! (due 11/12)
by Emily Dickinson
Bee! I'm expecting you!
Was saying Yesterday
To Somebody you know
That you were due --
The Frogs got Home last Week --
Are settled, and at work --
Birds, mostly back --
The Clover warm and thick --
You'll get my Letter by
The Seventeenth; Reply
Or better, be with me --
Yours, Fly.
Furry Bear (due 11/23)
By A. A. Milne
If I were a bear,
And a big bear too,
I shouldn't much care
If it froze or snew;
I shouldn't much mind
If it snowed or friz -
I'd be all fur-lined
With a coat like his!
And brown fur knickers and a big fur cap.
I'd have a fur muffle-ruff to cover my jaws,
And brown fur mittens on my big brown paws.
With a big brown furry-down up to my head,
I'd sleep all the winter in a big fur bed.
At the Zoo (due 12/17)
BY A. A. MILNE
There are lions and roaring tigers, and enormous camels and things,
There are biffalo-buffalo-bisons, and a great big bear with wings.
There's a sort of a tiny potamus, and a tiny nosserus too -
But I gave buns to the elephant when I went down to the Zoo!
There are badgers and bidgers and bodgers, and a Superintendent's House,
There are biffalo-buffalo-bisons, and a great big bear with wings.
There's a sort of a tiny potamus, and a tiny nosserus too -
But I gave buns to the elephant when I went down to the Zoo!
There are badgers and bidgers and bodgers, and a Superintendent's House,
There are masses of goats, and a Polar, and different kinds of mouse,
And I think there's a sort of a something which is called a wallaboo -
But I gave buns to the elephant when I went down to the Zoo!
If you try to talk to the bison, he never quite understands;
You can't shake hands with a mingo - he doesn't like shaking hands.
And lions and roaring tigers hate saying, "How do you do?" -
But I give buns to the elephant when I go down to the Zoo!
And I think there's a sort of a something which is called a wallaboo -
But I gave buns to the elephant when I went down to the Zoo!
If you try to talk to the bison, he never quite understands;
You can't shake hands with a mingo - he doesn't like shaking hands.
And lions and roaring tigers hate saying, "How do you do?" -
But I give buns to the elephant when I go down to the Zoo!
The Star-Spangled Banner (Project Week Poem)
by Francis Scott Key
O say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming;
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?
On that shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, now conceals, now discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines on the stream;
‘Tis the star-spangled banner; O long may it wave
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave!
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave,
From the terror of flight and the gloom of the grave;
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave!
O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land,
Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just.
And this be our motto— “In God is our trust; "
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.
Seashell (Due 4/8)
by Frederico Garcia Lorca
They've brought me a seashell.
Inside it sings
A map of the sea.
My heart
Fills up with water,
With smallish fish
Of shade and silver.
They've brought me a seashell.The Hayloft (Due 4/29)
By Robert Louis Stevenson
Through all the pleasant meadow-side
The grass grew shoulder-high,
Till the shining scythes went far and wide
And cut it down to dry.
Those green and sweetly smelling crops
Those green and sweetly smelling crops
They led in wagons home;
And they piled them here in mountain tops
For mountaineers to roam.
Here is Mount Clear, Mount Rusty-Nail,
Here is Mount Clear, Mount Rusty-Nail,
Mount Eagle and Mount High;—
The mice that in these mountains dwell,
No happier are than I!
Oh, what a joy to clamber there,
Oh, what a place for play,
With the sweet, the dim, the dusty air,
The happy hills of hay!
Foreign Lands (Due 5/20)
by Robert Louis Stevenson
Up into the cherry tree
Who should climb but little me?
I held the trunk with both my hands
And looked abroad in foreign lands.
I saw the next door garden lie,
Adorned with flowers, before my eye,
And many pleasant places more
That I had never seen before.
I saw the dimpling river pass
And be the sky's blue looking-glass;
The dusty roads go up and down
With people tramping in to town.
If I could find a higher tree
Farther and farther I should see,
To where the grown-up river slips
Into the sea among the ships,
To where the road on either hand
Lead onward into fairy land,
Where all the children dine at five,
And all the playthings come alive.
Old Ironsides
By Oliver Wendell Holmes
Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!
Long has it waved on high,
And many an eye has danced to see
That banner in the sky;
Beneath it rung the battle shout,
And burst the cannon’s roar;—
The meteor of the ocean air
Shall sweep the clouds no more!
Her deck, once red with heroes’ blood
Where knelt the vanquished foe,
When winds were hurrying o’er the flood
And waves were white below,
No more shall feel the victor’s tread,
Or know the conquered knee;—
The harpies of the shore shall pluck
The eagle of the sea!
O, better that her shattered hulk
Should sink beneath the wave;
Her thunders shook the mighty deep,
And there should be her grave;
Nail to the mast her holy flag,
Set every thread-bare sail,
And give her to the god of storms,—
The lightning and the gale!
Windy Nights
Whenever the moon and stars are set,
Whenever the wind is high,
All night long in the dark and wet,
A man goes riding by.
Late in the night when the fires are out,
Why does he gallop and gallop about?
Whenever the trees are crying aloud,
And ships are tossed at sea,
By, on the highway, low and loud,
By at the gallop goes he.
By at the gallop he goes, and then
By he comes back at the gallop again.
Buffalo Dusk
by Carl Sandburg
The buffaloes are gone.
And those who saw the buffaloes are gone.
Those who saw the buffaloes by thousands and how they
pawed the prairie sod into dust with their great hoofs,
their great heads down pawing on in a great pageant of dusk,
Those who saw the buffaloes are gone.
And the buffaloes are gone.
Foreign Lands
by Robert Louis Stevenson
The Year
by Sara Coleridge
January brings the snow,makes our feet and fingers glow.
February brings the rain,
Thaws the frozen lake again.
March brings breezes loud and shrill,
stirs the dancing daffodil.
April brings the primrose sweet,
Scatters daisies at our feet.
May brings flocks of pretty lambs,
Skipping by their fleecy dams.
June brings tulips, lilies, roses,
Fills the children’s hand with posies.
Hot July brings cooling showers,
Apricots and gillyflowers.
August brings the sheaves of corn,
Then the Harvest home is borne.
Warm September brings the fruit,
Sportsmen then begin to shoot.
Fresh October brings the pheasant;
Then to gather nuts is pleasant.
Dull November brings the blast,
Then the leaves are falling fast.
Chill December brings the sleet,
Blazing fire and Christmas treat.
Smart
Shel Silverstein
My dad gave me one dollar bill
‘Cause I’m his smartest son,
And I swapped it for two shiny quarters
‘Cause two is more than one!
And then i took the quarters
And traded them to Lou
For three dimes-i guess he don’t know
that three is more than two!
Just then, along came old blind Bates
And just ’cause he can’t see
He gave me four nickels for my three dimes,
And four is more than three!
And i took the nickels to Hiram Coombs
Down at the seed-feed store,
and the fool gave me five pennies for them,
And five is more than four!
And then i went and showed my dad,
and he got red in the cheeks
And closed his eyes and shook his head-
Too proud of me to speak!
