Memories of Poems

I found two poems today that I had memorized as a child. As I read them to my four year old, I realized that I still knew them.

This reminded me how important memorization is to our education.

Here are the poems;

Hunter Trials 

 By John Betjeman

It's awf'lly bad luck on Diana,

Her ponies have swallowed their bits :

She fished down their throats with a spanner

And frightened them all into fits.

So now she's attempting to borrow.

Do lend her some bits, Mummy, do;

I'll lend her my own for tomorrow,

But today I'll be wanting them too.

Just look at Prunella on Guzzle,

The wizardest pony on earth;

Why doesn't she slacken his muzzle

And tighten the breech in his girth?

I say, Mummy, there's Mrs Geyser

And doesn't she look pretty sick?

I bet it's because Mona Lisa

Was hit on the hock with a brick.

Miss Blewitt says Monica threw it,

But Monica says it was Joan,

And Joan's very thick with Miss Blewitt,

So Monica's sulking alone.

And Margaret failed in her paces,

Her withers got tied in a noose,

So her coronets caught in the traces

And now all her fetlocks are loose.

Oh, it's me now. I'm terribly nervous.

I wonder if Smudges will shy.

She's practically certain to swerve as

Her Pelham is over one eye.

Oh wasn't it naughty of Smudges?

Oh, Mummy, I'm sick with disgust.

She threw me in front of the Judges,

And my silly old collarbone's bust.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village, though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if their is some mistake.

The only other sound's the sweep 

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

How to do add poetry to your homeschool?

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