- Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
- Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore--
- While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
- As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
- "'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door--
- Only this, and nothing more."
- The Raven - Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)
By the shores of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,
Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.
Dark behind it rose the forest,
Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees,
Rose the firs with cones upon them;
Bright before it beat the water,
Beat the clear and sunny water,
Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water.
There the wrinkled old Nokomis
Nursed the little Hiawatha,
Rocked him in his linden cradle,
Bedded soft in moss and rushes.
Safely bound with reindeer sinews;
The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882
Do kids learn these poems anymore? I don't think so. We remember the words to countless Elvis and other rock and roll songs. Will the words of their top ten tunes still be sung 50 years from now! I know the answer to that one is for sure a loud NO! What do they have in their memory? I love all those little gems I have in my memory.....will they love what is in their memory?
Sorry for the goofy formatting. I copied those words from a site that will not let me change the color etc!
4 comments:
how can they remember any rock and roll songs if they don't understand the words now?
Riky
I have the same type of thing going on from my past, Marge. I would more often break out into song, but my family says, "No. Don't sing!" I used to have a fairly good voice, but it's a bit more gravely these days, and they say I sing too loud!
I do have one daughter who loves to have me teach her all the goofy camp songs I learned in my youth. She sang them to her teammates on the bus to Kent State BB games. I think sometimes they told her also, "No. Don't sing!"
Nancy in Iowa
my husband and I do this all the time, always breaking into song, sometimes to redirect focus with our girls and sometimes just cuz' we feel like it. I sing nonsense to the girls all the time, usually to the tune of "the grinch stole christmas", I would imagine given that our girls are still learning English that our quotes from years gone by such as "too old to cut the mustard" and "that's a hoot" confuse their fellow peers - awww that's just too bad! ;0)
I still remember The Road Less Traveled by Robert Frost from junior high. I'm 61 now.
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