Monday, December 24, 2018

First Grade

What do I remember about Grade One?  I remember the teacher singing "We are marching to Pretoria." And being introduced to Christina Rossetti's poem "Who Has Seen The Wind?" (At least I think it was Grade One.)

Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you.
But when the leaves are trembling
The wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I.
But when the trees bow down their heads
The wind is passing by.

When you think about it, that poem is really about God.  Only in later years did I learn that it was a product of the Pre-Raphaelite movement in art and poetry in Victorian Britain. (The author was married to another Pre-Raphaelite poet, Dante Gabriel Rossetti.)

I'm glad I've managed to memorize a few poems.  Back in pre-literate times they'd pass on culture in the form of memorized songs and poems.

One I remember is a Sappho poem, translated by Isak Dinesen. (Or at least she used this translation in Out of Africa.)

The moon has sunk, and the Pleiades,
And midnight is gone.
And the hours are passing, passing...
And I lie alone.

And I remember one by Robert Frost:

The way a crow shook down on me
A dust of snow from a hemlock tree
Has given my heart a change of mood
And saved some part of a day I had rued.

And another:

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 gives way to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

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