Back Aa

Poems Every Child Should Know

Close

<h3>Ode to a Skylark.</h3> <div class="pre_poem">"Ode to a Skylark," by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), is usually assigned to "grammar grades" of schools. It is included here out of respect to a boy of eleven years who was more impressed with these lines than with any other lines in any poem: <blockquote> "Like a poet hidden, In the light of thought Singing songs unbidden Till the world is wrought To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not." </blockquote></div> <table class="poem" summary="poem"><tr><td><div class="stanza"> Hail to thee, blithe spirit— Bird thou never wert— That from heaven or near it Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. </div> <div class="stanza"> Higher still and higher From the earth thou springest, Like a cloud of fire; The blue deep thou wingest, And singing still dost soar and soaring ever singest. </div> <div class="stanza"> In the golden lightning Of the sunken sun, O'er which clouds are brightening, Thou dost float and run, Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. </div> <div class="stanza"> The pale purple even Melts around thy flight; Like a star of heaven, In the broad daylight Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight. </div> <div class="stanza"> All the earth and air With thy voice is loud, As, when night is bare, From one lonely cloud The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed. </div> <div class="stanza"> What thou art we know not; What is most like thee? From rainbow-clouds there flow not Drops so bright to see As from thy presence showers a rain of melody:— </div> <div class="stanza"> Like a poet hidden In the light of thought; Singing hymns unbidden, Till the world is wrought To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not. </div> <div class="stanza"> Teach us, sprite or bird, What sweet thoughts are thine: I have never heard Praise of love or wine That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. </div> <div class="stanza"> Chorus hymeneal Or triumphal chaunt, Matched with thine, would be all But an empty vaunt— A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. </div> <div class="stanza"> What objects are the fountains Of thy happy strain? What fields, or waves, or mountains? What shapes of sky or plain? What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain? </div> <div class="stanza"> Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know, Such harmonious madness From my lips would flow, The world should listen then, as I am listening now! </div> </td></tr></table> Percy Bysshe Shelley. <h3>The Sands of Dee.</h3> <div class="pre_poem">I have often had the pleasure of riding across the coast from Chester, England, to Rhyl, on the north coast of Wales, where stretch "The Sands of Dee" (Charles Kingsley, 1819-75). These purple sands at low tide stretch off into the sea miles away, and are said to be full of quicksands. </div> <table class="poem" summary="poem"><tr><td><div class="stanza"> "O Mary, go and call the cattle home, And call the cattle home, And call the cattle home, Across the sands of Dee." The western wind was wild and dark with foam And all alone went she. </div> <div class="stanza"> The western tide crept up along the sand, And o'er and o'er the sand, And round and round the sand, As far as eye could see. The rolling mist came down and hid the land; And never home came she. Oh! is it weed, or fish, or floating hair,— A tress of golden hair, A drownèd maiden's hair, Above the nets at sea? Was never salmon yet that shone so fair Among the stakes on Dee. </div> <div class="stanza"> They rowed her in across the rolling foam, The cruel crawling foam, The cruel hungry foam, To her grave beside the sea. But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home Across the sands of Dee. </div> </td></tr></table> Charles Kingsley. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2