Beginning Poetry Memorization

Eleanor (5) and Julia (almost 4) have memories like steel traps. One time watching a movie and they're already quoting dialogue and rattling off lyrics. Therefore, it must be time to start some real poetry memorization.

Children's poetry is tricky stuff -- we wanted something short enough to be memorable, but not too treacly. A while ago I found a copy of Kate Greenaway's Under the Window at a library booksale. I pulled that off the shelf hoping that I could find some simple poem for Julia. I wasn't overly impressed -- the pictures were charming, but the verse was too twee to be worth the effort of memorization. I have a fondness for A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson, but Darwin doesn't always care for the shortest poems therein. (As it turns out, we did find one by Stevenson that we liked for Julia -- see below.) Right now our favorite poetry anthology for the girls is Classic Poetry: An Illustrated Collection, but the poems are too long for the girls to easily master in a week.

In the end, we consulted The Oxford Book of English Verse and The Oxford Book of Children's Verse to select a poem for each girl. For Eleanor we found "Morning Prayer" by Ogden Nash:

Morning Prayer
by Ogden Nash

Now another day is breaking,
Sleep was sweet and so is waking.
Dear Lord, I promised you last night
Never again to sulk or fight.
Such vows are easier to keep
When a child is sound asleep.
Today, O Lord, for your dear sake,
I'll try to keep them when awake.

Julia's was an old classic (though I'd always thought it was just an old nursery rhyme):

There Was a Little Girl
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

There was a little girl
Who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good
She was very, very good,
But when she was bad she was horrid.

We practiced during the week and had a formal recitation on Sunday evening. For this week we have two new selections.

Eleanor:

How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!

How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in,
With gently smiling jaws!

--Lewis Carroll

Julia:

Rain
by Robert Louis Stevenson

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