Poetry Wednesday

Shannon has recently been given an assignment to do research and write a paragraph on a famous/important person. Coincidentally, the person she was assigned is one of my favorite poets, Shel Silverstein. As I thought about this, my thoughts trailed back to my childhood and how much I enjoyed reading children's poetry. I've decided to revisit this, and bring you along.

From now on every Wednesday will be Poetry Wednesday and will feature one of my favorite poems from when I was young. Many of them I still enjoy now.

The first poem I would like to share with you is the first poem I ever memorized and one of my all time favorites. I'm not sure what drew me to this poem. Perhaps it was just the free, careless feeling you get while reading it. I think I also loved the picture that accompanied it in the book I used to have. I don't know where the book is at the moment, but I can still imagine it. It was a picture of a young girl, all dressed up in a white frilly dress with a pick sash. She is sitting on an old fashioned rope swing tied to a tree in the countryside.

Anyway, here is your poem.

The Swing
How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantist thing
Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
Rivers and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside-

Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown-
Up in th air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down!

-Robert Louis Stevenson