The other day we were trying to remember an old riddle that
G'ma Opal used to tell.  I never could remember how it went,
so I googled it.

I think G'ma changed the name from Twitchett to something else...
but I can't remember what it was.

So,...here's the riddle.  Guess it, if you can.

Old mother Twitchett has but one eye,
And a long tail which she can let fly,
And every time she goes over a gap,
She leaves a bit of her tail in a trap.

I found William Blake and below is the poem:

To Spring

O thou, with dewy locks, who lookest down
Thro' the clear windows of the morning, turn
Thine angel eyes upon our western isle,
Which in full choir hails thy approach, O Spring!

The hills tell each other, and the list'ning
Valleys hear; all our longing eyes are turned
Up to thy bright pavillions: issue forth,
And let thy holy feet visit our clime.

Come o'er the eastern hills, and let our winds
Kiss thy perfumed garments; let us taste
Thy morn and evening breath; scatter thy pearls
Upon our lovesick land that mourns for thee.

O deck her forth with thy fair fingers; pour
Thy soft kisses on her bosom; and put
Thy golden crown upon her languish'd head,
Whose modest tresses were bound up for thee!


I also found the poem I wrote.

Early Spring

The morning was cold upon my face,
But the promise was there:
The promise of noontime warmth;
The promise of afternoon kissing breezes;
The promise of perfume wafting on the evening air.

So, so busy.  But I had to share this.

One of the mothers at our church texted me this today.

"Jedd keeps talking about his teacher, so I asked him
who his teacher was."

(aside...I am his Bible Class teacher)

"He said, 'That tiny girl. She is this tiny.' And then he showed
me with his fingers how tiny she was."

I knew when I got older I would end up just an oil spot on the
floor.  It has begun!

Also, just so you know, there are violets in bloom.  And, of course,
my second favorite tree, the miniature magnolia that the kids use
as a climbing tree, is in bloom.

And, so are the bradford pears, but they are just boring, copycat
trees, hardly worth remarking about.

I had a poem about spring that I was going to share from a book
of poems by William Blake, but Hattie has been reorganizing the
house with a vengeance.  She has reorganized my book somewhere
that I can't find.  So, that may be a blessing or a curse for you,
depending on your love for poetry.

I also wrote a poem the other day when I was out watering the cows.
It was also about spring.  Well, I didn't write it while I was outside,
but I composed it as I waited for the water containers to fill.  Then,
when I went inside, I wrote it down.  But, it disappeared.  I don't blame
Hattie this time.  I just have no idea where I put it after I wrote it.

Seasons

"Wyrd is mightiest, winter is coldest,
Spring is frostiest, longest cold;
Summer is sunniest, sun is hottest,
Autumn most glorious giving to man
The fruits of the year that God brings forth."

From: Cotton MS. Maxims
which is contained in--
an anthology of Old English Poety
translated by Charles W. Kennedy

A Thunderstorm
by Emily Dickinson

The wind begun to rock the grass
With threatening tunes and low, -
He flung a menace at the earth,
A menace at the sky.

The leaves unhooked themselves from trees
And started all abroad;
The dust did scoop itself like hands
And throw away the road.

The wagons quickened on the streets,
The thunder hurried slow;
The lightning showed a yellow beak,
And then a livid claw.

The birds put up the bars to nests,
The cattle fled to barns;
There came one drop of giant rain,
And then, as if the hands

That held the dams had parted hold,
The waters wrecked the sky,
But overlooked my father's house,
Just quartering a tree.




A Thunderstorm
By Archibald Lampman

A moment the wild swallows like a flight
Of withered gust-caught leaves, serenely high,
Toss in the windrack up the muttering sky.
The leaves hang still. Above the weird twilight,
The hurrying centres of the storm unite
And spreading with huge trunk and rolling fringe,
Each wheeled upon its own tremendous hinge,
Tower darkening on. And now from heaven's height,
With the long roar of elm-trees swept and swayed,
And pelted waters, on the vanished plain
Plunges the blast. Behind the wild white flash
That splits abroad the pealing thunder-crash,
Over bleared fields and gardens disarrayed,
Column on column comes the drenching rain.

BC:AD
by U.A. Fanthorpe
from The Oxford Book of Christmas Poems


This was the moment when Before
Turned into After, and the future's
Uninvented timekeepers presented arms.

This was the moment when nothing
Happened. Only dull peace
Sprawled boringly over the earth.

This was the moment when even energetic Romans
Could find nothing better to do
Than counting heads in remote provinces.

And this was the moment
When a few farm workers and three
Members of an obscure Persian sect
Walked haphazardly by starlight straight
Into the kingdom of heaven.

Vespers

Little Boy kneels at the foot of the bed,
Droops on the little hands little gold head.
Hush! Hush! Whisper who dares!
Christopher Robin is saying his prayers.

God bless Mummy. I know that's right.
Wasn't it fun in the bath to-night?
The cold's so cold, and the hot's so hot.
Oh! God bless Daddy - I quite forgot.

If I open my fingers a little bit more,
I can see Nanny's dressing-gown on the door.
It's a beautiful blue, but it hasn't a hood.
Oh! God bless Nanny and make her good.

Mine has a hood, and I lie in bed,
And pull the hood right over my head,
And I shut my eyes, and I curl up small,
And nobody knows that I'm there at all.

Oh! Thank you, God, for a lovely day.
And what was the other I had to say?
I said "Bless Daddy," so what can it be?
Oh! Now I remember it. God bless Me.

Little Boy kneels at the foot of the bed,
Droops on the little hands little gold head.
Hush! Hush! Whisper who dares!
Christopher Robin is saying his prayers.

I have enjoyed all the blog-posted poetry this
month. When the children were younger I enjoyed
making up little ditties to sing in the car or
as we worked and played. One of them has stuck
with us and Hattie will still say it at times.

Bathtime Poem

My little hands get wrinkled,
Whenever I take a bath.
My little feet get wrinkled too;
It makes me want to laugh.

My name is (say child's full name),
And I am asking you-
Do your hands and feet
Ever get wrinkled too?

April is Poetry Month, and, while I haven't done
anything so ambitious as post a poem a day or
even a poem a week, here is my offering in the
wee hours of a beautiful spring morning.

Spring Morning
A A Milne

Where am I going? I don't quite know.
Down to the stream where the king-cups grow -
Up on the hill where the pine trees blow -
Anywhere, anywhere. I don't know.

Where am I going? The clouds sail by,
Little ones, baby ones, over the sky.
Where am I going? The shadows pass,
Little ones, baby ones, over the grass.

If you were a cloud, and sailed up there,
You'd sail on water as blue as air,
And you'd see me here in the fields and say:
"Doesn't the sky look green today?"

"Where am I going?" the high rooks call:
"It's awful fun to be born at all."
"Where am I going?" the ring-doves coo:
"We do have beautiful things to do."

If you were a bird, and lived on high,
You'd lean on the wind when the wind came by,
You'd say to the wind when it took you away:
"That's where I wanted to go today!"

Where am I going? I don't quite know.
What does it matter where people go?
Down to the wood where the blue-bells grow -
Anywhere, anywhere. I don't know.


The A.A. Milne books I own have been mine since
I was a child. The one I got the above poem
from, When We Were Very Young,is a 1961 edition.

Milne and Pooh Bear have always been held close
in the corner of my heart that I reserve for dear
friends. I never can read the last chapter of The
House at Pooh Corner without crying. I always
hand it off to one of the kids to finish.

And now I'll end this with one funny story about
the effect the Pooh stories have had on our family.
When Tyler was little, 6 or so, he and I were talking
about the trip he would get to take with his Dad when
he was 10. We had just finished reading the Winnie
the Pooh books and Tyler said, "Well, when we go on
our trip, it's gonna take us a long time to get to the
North Pole!"

I found this at Wittingshire today. It is an
amazing poem. Wittingshire is lovely blog.

The Pulley

When God at first made man,
Having a glass of blessings standing by,
Let us (said He) pour on him all we can:
Let the world's riches, which dispersed lie,
Contract into a span.

So strength first made a way;
Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honour, pleasure:
When almost all was out, God made a stay,
Perceiving that alone of all His treasure
Rest in the bottom lay.

For if I should (said He)
Bestow this jewel also on my creature,
He would adore My gifts instead of Me,
And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature:
So both should losers be.

Yet let him keep the rest,
But keep them with repining restlessness:
Let him be rich and weary, that, at least,
If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
May toss him to My breast.

--George Herbert (1593-1633.)

Odes for a wet and wetter day.


One misty, moisty day, when wet was the weather,
I chanced to meet an old man dressed all in leather.
He began to compliment and I began to grin,
"How do you do?" and "How do you do?" and
"How do you do?" again.


It rains and it pours,
I've got too many chores,
There's the cleaning and baking to do.
I'd rather be out
On a wild, wet hill
Laughing and dancing with you.

Two Graces (from The Faber Book of Children's Verse)

Some hae meat, and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it;
But we hae meat and we can eat,
And sae the Lord be thankit!

by Robert Burns


Hurly, hurly, roon the table,
Eat as muckle as you're able.
Eat muckle, pooch nane,
Hurly, hurly, Amen.

Anonymous


May I be kept from fate of this lady:

There was an old woman, and what do you think,
She lived upon nothing but victuals and drink.
Victuals and drink were the whole of her diet,
Yet this plaguey old woman would never be quiet.

Anonymous