"Past One O'clock": Do You Know Any Poems by Heart?

When I was a kid I was OBSESSED with Shel Silverstein. I know I can still recite the Crocodile's Toothache by heart. In fact, I could probably do about half of Where the Sidewalk Ends if you give me a minute! ;)

Annabelle Lee, Casey at the Bat, Flanders Fields, the Holy Palmers sonnet from Romeo and Juliet, off the top of my head. The Gettysburg Address, the Preamble to the Constitution, the Beatitudes, and the 100th Psalm, too. I have a devil of a time memorizing stuff, but once it's in there, it's in there forever.

'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house...

I still hear (in my head!) my mom reading it to us. Good memories :-)

I know "Twas the Night Before Christmas", and I LOVE poems by Hafiz, a 12th century poet, but so beautiful, funny, and relevant.

First
The fish needs to say,
"Something ain't right about this
Camel ride -
And I'm
Feeling so damn
Thirsty."
~~Hafiz

This place where you are right now,
God circled on a map for you.
~~Hafiz

Now
That
All your worry
Has proved such an
Unlucrative
Business,
Why
Not
Find a better
Job.
~~Hafiz

Even after all this time,
the sun never says to the earth,
"You owe me."
Look what happens with a love like that.
It lights the whole sky.
~~Hafiz

Shakespeare's Sonnet 116
"Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved."

Lewis Carroll's The Jabberwocky . I had to learn it for a 5th grade community theater presentation and I act it out and tell it to my kids every halloween:) LOL! such a nerd.

I know almost all of "T'was the night before Christmas" by heart. (See my profile picture.)

I also know the first four lines of "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere" by Longfellow. I had a 7th grade english teacher that made us memorize it for a major grade. If you knew the first 4 lines you got a "C". Each line after that was 5 points toward an "A"

Then there is the classic, "Roses are Red, Violets are blue . . ."

Good luck to you and yours.

When I was a teen, we went to MT to visit family. Part of that was visiting the cemetary. There was a tombstone that had the following on it. For some reason, it freaked me out and really stuck with me (I'm 45 now and still remember it 30+ years later!):

Strangers think as you pass by,
As you are now, so once was I.
As I am now, soon you will be...
Prepare for death and follow me.

Yes! I know a number of them, and also a lot of lyrics to songs, many of which nobody else probably ever heard of. Even now I like to memorize - it's such a great brain exerciser and a lot of fun besides. It's even more fun when you remember something you didn't think you learned so well!

Have you ever learned all the words to "The Star-Spangled Banner"? All four verses? Years ago, I decided to learn it without "cramming," and see if it would stay in my long-term memory (like your poem) instead of evaporating in my short-term memory. So I copied it out, stuck it on the fridge, and read it every time I walked past. Pretty soon bits and pieces started making a dent in my grey matter. It took about two years, but I still remember 95% of it.

From long ago, I remember a number of the A.A. Milne poems (Christopher Robin/Winnie the Pooh), including "King John's Christmas" and "The Old Sailor." I know a little Robert Frost, a little Emily Dickinson, a little Robert W. Service, a little Scripture but not as much as I'd like to, a little Shakespeare:

"The quality of mercy is not strained [constrained - compulsory];
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed -
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown!
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power -
That attribute to awe and majesty
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings.
But mercy is above this sceptred sway -
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings -
It is an attribute to God Himself -
And earthly power dost then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice." (The Merchant of Venice)

That may not be 100%, but I think it's close.

(P.S. I'm laughing, Christy J! Nerds rule! They're the ones who accomplish things.)

I know a few but like you it is the poem we (hubby and I) learned from Mrs. Jones in high school English 40 years ago that you can still hear us recite bits of - the Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Coleridge starting with:

It is an ancient mariner, he stoppeth one of three, By thy long grey beard and glittering eye Now whereforth stoppest thou me

but my favorite stanza is:

Water, water everywhere and all the boards did shrink, water, water everywhere nor any drop to drink...

Love you Mrs. Jones wherever you are and thanks for giving this to me!

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

By: Robert Frost
*I loved The Outsiders as a kid!

Invitation
If you are a dreamer, come in,
If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
a hope-er, a prayer, a magic bean buyer...
If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire
for we have some flax golden tales to spin.
Come in. Come in.

By: Shel Silverstein
*Who doesn't LOVE him?

I learned this in the 5th grade and never ever forgot it. I loved the fact that it was all in lowercase letters as is customary for e.e. cummings. It made such a creative and imanginary impression on me. 'Til this day I use the words "languid" starfish when I feel exhausted.

Maggie And Milly And Molly And May

maggie and millie and molly and may
went down to the beach (to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles, and

millie befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles: and

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
it's always ourselves we find in the sea.

Just a couple of "parts" of poems.....

"Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find,
Strength in what remains behind"
- William Wordsworth

"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery."
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge