This one is for my six-year old, who wandered up to my desk last night, a full hour after her bedtime, to tell me with grave sadness that her sleeping bag had a loose thread hanging from it.
It should be noted that her sleeping bag had been rolled up tight and tucked into her closet when I’d kissed her goodnight.
Bed in Summer
(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?
And this one is dedicated to that bullhorned bird who sits outside my window every morning to practice the only two notes he knows, one of which is flat. I don’t care what Mr. Frost says—you’d best not break camouflage where I can see you, because I have a shoe with your name on it, bucko.
The Oven Bird
(Robert Frost)
There is a singer everyone has heard,
Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,
Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.
He says that leaves are old and that for flowers
Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.
He says the early petal-fall is past
When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers
On sunny days a moment overcast;
And comes that other fall we name the fall.
He says the highway dust is over all.
The bird would cease and be as other birds
But that he knows in singing not to sing.
The question that he frames in all but words
Is what to make of a diminished thing.
And that one little kid two Saturdays ago, who took to the library like an untrained puppy takes to the Abyssinian rug:
On the Gift of a Book to a Child
(Hilaire Belloc)
Child! do not throw this book about!
Refrain from the unholy pleasure
Of cutting all the pictures out!
Preserve it as your chiefest treasure.
Child, have you never heard it said
That you are heir to all the ages?
Why, then, your hands were never made
To tear these beautiful thick pages!
Your little hands were made to take
The better things and leave the worse ones:
They also may be used to shake
The Massive Paws of Elder Persons.
And when your prayers complete the day,
Darling, your little tiny hands
Were also made, I think, to pray
For men that lose their fairylands.
This is for those of us with Leaning Towers of Literacy on our bedside tables—and in our living rooms and bathrooms and kitchens and, and, and—who might complain about the length of their To Be Read lists, but have no intention of stopping until the Domino Effect buries us alive:
Of Modern Books
(Carolyn Wells)
A Pantoum
Of making many books there is no end,
Though myriads have to deep oblivion gone;
Each day new manuscripts are being penned,
And still the ceaseless tide of ink flows on.
Though myriads have to deep oblivion gone,
New volumes daily issue from the press;
And still the ceaseless tide of ink flows on—
The prospect is disheartening, I confess.
New volumes daily issue from the press;
My pile of unread books I view aghast.
The prospect is disheartening, I confess;
Why will these modern authors write so fast?
My pile of unread books I view aghast—
Of course I must keep fairly up to date—
Why will these modern authors write so fast?
They seem to get ahead of me of late.
Of course I must keep fairly up to date;
The books of special merit I must read;
They seem to get ahead of me of late,
Although I skim them very fast indeed.
The books of special merit I must read;
And then the magazines come round again;
Although I skim them very fast indeed,
I can’t get through with more than eight or ten.
And then the magazines come round again!
How can we stem this tide of printer’s ink?
I can’t get through with more than eight or ten—
It is appalling when I stop to think.
How can we stem this tide of printer’s ink?
Of making many books there is no end.
It is appalling when I stop to think
Each day new manuscripts are being penned!
And this one is dedicated to my dear friend who interrupted a perfectly good bout of anxiety and told me to write what I want to write, because I want to write it. Now.
Lines on Nonsense
(Eliza Lee Follen)
Yes, nonsense is a treasure!
I love it from my heart;
The only earthly pleasure
That never will depart.
But, as for stupid reason,
That stalking, ten-foot rule,
She’s always out of season,
A tedious, testy fool.
She’s like a walking steeple,
With a clock for face and eyes,
Still bawling to all people,
Time bids us to be wise.
While nonsense on the spire
A weathercock you’ll find,
Than reason soaring higher,
And changing with the wind.
The clock too oft deceives,
Says what it cannot prove;
While every one believes
The vane that turns above.
Reason oft speaks unbidden,
And chides us to our face;
For which she should be chidden,
And taught to know her place.
While nonsense smiles and chatters,
And says such charming things,
Like youthful hope she flatters;
And like a syren sings.
Her charm’s from fancy borrowed,
For she is fancy’s pet;
Her name is on her forehead,
In rainbow colors set.
Then, nonsense let us cherish,
Far, far from reason’s light;
Lest in her light she perish,
And vanish from our sight.
Thanks. I needed that.
Got any dedications?
Earful of Cider 