Poems to Remember

A Windy Day by Jessie Willcox Smith (1908)

When I was a little girl my great-grandmother,  who was born in 1887 in Atlantic City, N.J., used to recite a poem to me that she had learned when she was in school. At ninety, she could still remember every word, and my grandmother, realizing what a treasure this poem was, copied it down and preserved the page in the family Bible. In the days before the Internet, we had no way to know that it was a famous poem, and we thought it might be gone forever once "Mammy" passed away. The poem was called "Come Little Leaves", and it was actually a popular poem of the era, one that many children learned by heart when they were very young.

Raking Leaves by Jessie Willcox Smith

Come Little Leaves

 “Come little leaves,” said the wind one day,

“Come o’er the meadows with me and play;

Put on your dresses of red and gold,

Summer is gone and the days grow cold.”

Soon as the leaves heard the wind’s loud call,

Down they came fluttering one and all;

Over the brown fields they danced and flew,

Singing the glad little songs they knew.

Dancing  and whirling the little leaves went,

Winter had called them and they were content;

Soon fast asleep in their earthly beds

The snow laid a white blanket over their heads.

--George Cooper

 

Illustration by Ethel Franklin Betts, from A Little Princess (1905)

In previous generations, memorization was an extremely important part of a child's education. It was not only important for academic or vocational success; it was seen as part of a moral foundation, to build good character and to equip children for a productive and ethical life. Much of education in the 19th and early 20th centuries appears harsh, rote and repetitive by today's standards. But grounded in history, tradition, and religious values, this type of education often succeeded in building self discipline and providing a foundation of knowledge and a moral compass that was intended to strengthen people throughout their lives.  

 

At School by Jessie Willcox Smith (1920

In addition to memorizing multiplication tables, Bible verses, prayers, hymns, famous speeches and patriotic songs, children also memorized poems. And these poems became part of them, enriching their lives by offering wisdom, comfort, and an appreciation of the beauty of language.

A 1905 book, Child’s Calendar Beautiful , Arranged by R. Katharine Beeson, was a collection of poems and prose selections to be memorized by children in the Lafayette Indiana schools, “as a part of the regular courses in English and ethics." Arranged by season and grade level., "(this book) had its beginning in the oft repeated request of the children to ‘read again’ certain favorite selections. The list, short at first, read again and again, and finally learned by heart, included at few poems whose richness of imagery and brilliance of word-coloring afforded the children a satisfactory expression for their own enjoyment of the beauty of the outdoor world around them. It was easy to extend it to include others whose recognized literary merit made an acquaintance with them desirable; still others whose strong human interest both stimulated and offered a means of expression for feelings which might grow into high ideals of what man’s relations to his neighbor ought to be; and others still, whose appeal is almost wholly to the moral nature….” The poem my great-grandmother learned as a child in the 1890s, "Come Little Leaves" is one of the poems included in this book.

At School by Jessie Willcox Smith (1909)

The following quotes, emphasizing the importance of poetry as a necessary part of education and of life  are taken from Child’s Calendar Beautiful: 

"In the course of our reading we should lay up in our minds a store of goodly thoughts in well-wrought words, which shall be a living treasure of knowledge always with us, and from which, at various times, and amidst all the shifting of circumstances, we might be sure of drawing some comfort, guidance, and sympathy."

__Sir Arthur Helps

Our teachers of English are called upon to use our unsurpassed English literature, as it has never been used before, toward the formation of character, the enrichment of life and the refinement of manners.

--Percival Chubb

Whatever Your occupation may be, and however crowded your hours with affairs, do not fail to secure at least a few minutes every day for refreshment of your inner life with a bit of poetry. Poetry is one of the most efficient means of education of the moral sentiment as well as of the intelligence. It is the source of the best culture. Let a man truly possess himself of any one of the works of the great poets, and no matter whatever else he may fail to know, he is not without education. To learn by heart the best poems is one of the best parts of the school education of the child.

--Charles Eliot Norton

Reading Together by Jessie Willcox Smith (1921)

Some poems were simple rhymes for young children with a moral message; others were great literary works by famous authors. Many impart a sense of wonder about the natural world, and may include allusions to fairies and magic. Others are meant to provoke thought, or are historically and culturally important. Some poems were very brief, but children often memorized long passages or even entire epic poems, such as "The Song of Hiawatha" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.  Many of the same poems, written by British and American authors, were commonly memorized throughout the English speaking world, with some national and regional variations. American children learned poems such as "O Captain, My Captain", Walt Whitman's tribute to President Abraham Lincoln written after his assassination in 1865. 

O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:

But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red,

Where on the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! My Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

Here captain! dear father!

This arm beneath your head;

It is some dream that on the deck,

You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;

Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!

But I, with mournful tread,

Walk the deck my captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

President Lincoln With His Youngest Son Tad (1864) Link

Irish children memorized poems by British and American authors, as well as poems in the Irish language. They also became familiar with the poetry of Irish poets who wrote in English, such as William Butler Yeats and William Allingham. 

Cat In the Moonlight by Theophile Steinlen Link

                                              THE CAT AND THE MOON

The cat went here and there

And the moon spun round like a top,

And the nearest kin of the moon,

The creeping cat, looked up.

Black Minnaloushe stared at the moon,

For, wander and wail as he would,

The pure cold light in the sky

Troubled his animal blood.

Minnaloushe runs in the grass

Lifting his delicate feet.

Do you dance, Minnaloushe, do you dance?

When two close kindred meet,

What better than call a dance?

Maybe the moon may learn,

Tired of that courtly fashion,

A new dance turn.

Minnaloushe creeps through the grass

From moonlit place to place,

The sacred moon overhead

Has taken a new phase.

Does Minnaloushe know that his pupils

Will pass from change to change,

And that from round to crescent,

From crescent to round they range?

Minnaloushe creeps through the grass

Alone, important and wise,

And lifts to the changing moon

His changing eyes.

 --William Butler Yeats (1919)

Leprechaun or Clurichaun (1862) link
Image from Croker, T. C.- Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland.

                                            The Faeries

 

UP the airy mountain,

Down the rushy glen,

We daren't go a-hunting

For fear of little men;

Wee folk, good folk,

Trooping all together;

Green jacket, red cap,

And white owl's feather!

Down along the rocky shore

Some make their home,

They live on crispy pancakes

Of yellow tide-foam;

Some in the reeds

Of the black mountain lake,

With frogs for their watch-dogs,

All night awake.

High on the hill-top

The old King sits;

He is now so old and gray

He 's nigh lost his wits.

With a bridge of white mist

Columbkill he crosses,

On his stately journeys

From Slieveleague to Rosses;

Or going up with music

On cold starry nights

To sup with the Queen

Of the gay Northern Lights.

They stole little Bridget

For seven years long;

When she came down again

Her friends were all gone.

They took her lightly back,

Between the night and morrow,

They thought that she was fast asleep,

But she was dead with sorrow.

They have kept her ever since

Deep within the lake,

On a bed of flag-leaves,

Watching till she wake.

By the craggy hill-side,

Through the mosses bare,

They have planted thorn-trees

For pleasure here and there.

If any man so daring

As dig them up in spite,

He shall find their sharpest thorns

In his bed at night.

Up the airy mountain,

Down the rushy glen,

We daren't go a-hunting

For fear of little men;

Wee folk, good folk,

Trooping all together;

Green jacket, red cap,

And white owl's feather!

--William Allingham

The Spring Cleaning by Harrison Cady (1908)

The following are some more enjoyable examples of these poems from bygone years. Some have been forgotten, and some are still found today in popular poetry anthologies.

 

 A Apple Pie By Kate Greenaway (1886)

The Golden Rule

Be to others kind and true

As you’d have others be to you.

 From  Child's Calendar Beautiful (1905)

Alphabetic Gems

From  Child's Calendar Beautiful (1905)

As little by little the oak trees grow,

So little by little I’ll try to know;

One of these days perhaps we’ll see

The world will be the better for me.

Be kind and gentle

To those who are old,

For dearer is kindness

And better than gold.

Cherish what is good and drive

Evil thoughts and feelings far,

For as sure as you’re alive

You will show for what you are

--Phoebe Cary 

Do not look for wrong and evil

You will find them if you do;

As you measure to your neighbor

He will measure back to you.

--Alice Cary

 

Every gentle word you say

One dark spirit drives away;

Every gentle deed you do

One bright spirit brings to you.

--Virginia Harrison

 

From Christmas Roses by Lizzie Lawson (1886)

  Kind hearts are the gardens,

Kind thoughts are the roots,

Kind words are the blossoms,

Kind deeds are the fruits.

No matter what you try to do,

At home or at your school,

Always do your very best,

There is no better rule.

One child sees sunlit air and sky,

And bursting leaf-buds round and ruddy.

Another looks down at the earth

And only sees that it is muddy.

Politeness is to do and say

The kindest thing in the kindest way.

Very little foxes

Spoil the vines, you know;

Very little ugly traits

Into big ones grow.

Yet when you come to think of it

The day is what you make it;

And whether good or whether bad

Depends on how you take it.

 

Potting Tulips by Jessie Willcox Smith

The Heart of A Seed

In the heart of a seed,

Buried deep, so deep,

A dear little plant lay fast asleep.

“Awake,” said the sunshine,

“And creep to the light.”

“Awake,” said the voice

Of the raindrop bright.

The little plant heard

And rose to see

What this beautiful outside world

might be.

--Author Unknown

                          
                            Daffodils
              by Wiiliam Wordsworth (1815)

Daffodil by Kate Greenaway (1884)

        I wandered lonely as a cloud
          That floats on high o'er vales and hills,           
          When all at once I saw a crowd,
          A host, of golden daffodils;
          Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
          Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
          
          Continuous as the stars that shine
          And twinkle on the milky way,   
          They stretched in never-ending line
          Along the margin of a bay:
          Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
          Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
          The waves beside them danced; but they
          Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
          A poet could not but be gay,
          In such a jocund company:
          I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
          What wealth the show to me had brought:
          For oft, when on my couch I lie
          In vacant or in pensive mood,
          They flash upon that inward eye
          Which is the bliss of solitude;
          And then my heart with pleasure fills,
          And dances with the daffodils.

Trees

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

--Joyce Kilmer (1913)

Scrumping by Kate Greenaway (1890)

A Psalm of Life

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
     Life is but an empty dream!—
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
     And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
     And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
     Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
     Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
     Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
     And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
     Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
     In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
     Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
     Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,—act in the living Present!
     Heart within, and God o'erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
     We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
     Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
     Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
     Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
     With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
     Learn to labor and to wait.

                                                                                         --Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1838)

Ethel Franklin Betts (1905)

Clouds

White sheep, white sheep,

On a blue hill,

When the wind stops,

You all stand still.

When the wind blows,

You walk away slow.

White sheep, white sheep,

Where do you go?

--Christina Rossetti

Rainy Day by Jessie Willcox Smith (1922)

 

Rain THE RAIN is raining all around,
It falls on field and tree,
It rains on the umbrellas here,
And on the ships at sea.

--Robert Louis Stevenson

                                                                         

                                                                        Sea Fever

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

                                                                                    -- By John Masefield (1916)

 

From Nister's Holiday Annual (1897)

Sweet and Low

Sweet and low, sweet and low,
Wind of the western sea,
Low, low, breathe and blow,
Wind of the western sea!
Over the rolling waters go,
Come from the dying moon, and blow,
Blow him again to me;
While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps.

Sleep and rest, sleep and rest,
Father will come to thee soon;
Rest, rest, on mother's breast,
Father will come to thee soon;
Father will come to his babe in the best,
Silver sails all out of the west,
Under the silver moon:
Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep.

 --Alfred, Lord Tennyson

If you would like more information, the following books are good sources of additional poems that children memorized when they were young and cherished all their lives. 

Child's Calendar Beautiful, Arranged by R. Katherine Beeson, Burt-Terry-Wilson Co., Lafayette Indiana (1905) (Public Domain, available at Hathi Trust)  Link

Favourite Poems We Learned in School, by Thomas F. Walsh (Editor),  Irish Amer Book Co. (1998) (Poems in English)

More Favourite Poems We Learned in School, by Thomas F. Walsh (Editor),  Irish Amer Book Co. (1998) (Poems in English)

Favourite Poems We Learned in School As Gaeilge, by Thomas F. Walsh (Editor), Irish Amer Book Co. (1998) (Poems in the Irish language)