Friday, November 12, 2010

Poetry Friday: Robert Louis Stevenson

In honor of Robert Louis Stevenson's birthday tomorrow, here's a poem a certain one of my children who would like to remain anonymous recently memorized:


The Swing
by Robert Louis Stevenson

How do you like to go up in a swing, 
             Up in the air so blue? 
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing 
             Ever a child can do! 

Up in the air and over the wall, 
             Till I can see so wide, 
River and trees and cattle and all 
             Over the countryside-- 

Till I look down on the garden green, 
              Down on the roof so brown-- 
Up in the air I go flying again, 
              Up in the air and down!


Discussing Mr. Stevenson this morning at the table, we decided it was pretty impressive that he's equally accomplished in both poetry and prose. One of our favorite Jim Weiss CD's is Treasure Island, part of that proud tradition of folks-marooned-on-an-island tales to which I owe my favorite -- and sadly, now-concluded -- TV show. You know what I mean. 


Julie Andrews' Collection of Poems, Songs, and LullabiesSpeaking of memorizing poems, we got our paws on a new book from the library called Julie Andrews' Collection of Poems, Songs, and Lullabies. It's lovely in style and content and includes a CD of Ms. Andrews (a.k.a. Mary Poppins) and her daughter reading their favorite poems. Yesterday in the yard, I read Joyce Kilmer's "Trees" to Eliza as she perched in our giant ash. She decided she'd memorize that one, to catch up with you-kno-who. Find it here


Poetry Friday linkup here. 



4 comments:

Raji P. said...

Lovely, what better way to spend a Friday? oh, I wish I could be a child in your family :)

Carol H Rasco said...

Hope you all have seen www.google.com today in honor of RLS's birthday! And THE SWING is my favorite of his poems for children. I still have A Child's Garden of Verses given to me by my grandparents when I was very young.

Julie said...

Love it, love swings, love the poem!

Nicole Stallworth said...

That's a lovely one. I will read that one to my kids at bedtime tonight, I think.