When I started enjoying poetry with my young son many years ago, I did not think it would be anything important. I have gradually gained an appreciation for verse over the course of time and it has enriched my own life. {It has been similar with great works of art we have enjoyed over our years of exposure and study. If you are new to art study and would like to know more about what to do, here is a previous post where I talk about Picture Study.} If I had dismissed poetry studies as an extra, we would have missed many beautiful ideas that now are integrated into our perspective of life.
Charlotte Mason describes, "the line that strikes us as we read, that recurs, that we murmur over at odd moments-this is the line that influences our living" and I find for myself and the occasional glimpses in my students this application of poetry as true. As the snow, it often returns to my thoughts - 'silent, and soft, and slow'.
Charlotte Mason describes, "the line that strikes us as we read, that recurs, that we murmur over at odd moments-this is the line that influences our living" and I find for myself and the occasional glimpses in my students this application of poetry as true. As the snow, it often returns to my thoughts - 'silent, and soft, and slow'.
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| Seurat, "Snow Effect - Winter in the suburbs" 1883 |
Looking out of the hotel window in St. Paul a couple of weeks ago, I watched the late winter snow.
"Snow-Flakes" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow begins:
Out of the bosom of the Air,
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent, and soft, and slow
Descends the snow.
