Cats Sleep Anywhere
Cats sleep anywhere
Any table, any chair
Top of piano, window ledge
In the middle, on the edge
Open drawer, empty shoe
Anybody’s lap will do
Fitted in a cardboard box
In the cupboard with your frocks
They don’t care
Cats sleep anywhere!
by Eleanor Farjeon
Eleanor ‘Nellie’ Farjeon was born on 13 February 1881 in Strand, London, England. She spent much of her childhood in her family’s attic, where she was surrounded by books. She became a poet and a writer of stories and plays for children. Eleanor ‘Nellie’ Farjeon passed on at 84 years of age on 5 June 1965 in Hampstead, London, England.
Cats sleep anywhere
Any table, any chair
Top of piano, window ledge
In the middle, on the edge
Open drawer, empty shoe
Anybody’s lap will do
Fitted in a cardboard box
In the cupboard with your frocks
They don’t care
Cats sleep anywhere!
by Eleanor Farjeon
Eleanor ‘Nellie’ Farjeon was born on 13 February 1881 in Strand, London, England. She spent much of her childhood in her family’s attic, where she was surrounded by books. She became a poet and a writer of stories and plays for children. Eleanor ‘Nellie’ Farjeon passed on at 84 years of age on 5 June 1965 in Hampstead, London, England.
Birds in Summer
How pleasant the life of a bird must be,
Flitting about in each leafy tree;
In the leafy trees so broad and tall,
Like a green and beautiful palace-hall,
With its airy chambers, light and boon,
That open to sun and stars and moon,
That open unto the bright, blue sky,
And the frolicsome winds as they wander by.
They have left their nest in the forest bough;
Those homes of delight they need not now;
And the young and the old. they wander out,
And traverse the green world round about;
And hark! at the top of this leafy hall.
How one to the other they lovingly call:
“Come up, come up,” they seem to say,
“Where the topmost twigs in the breezes sway.”
“Come up, come up, for the world is fair,
Where the merry leaves dance in the summer air.”
And the birds below give back the civ:
We come, we come, to the branches high!
How pleasant the life of a bird must be,
Flitting about in a leafy tree;
And away through the air what joy to go.
And look on the bright green earth below.
How pleasant the life of a bird must be,
Skimming about on the breezy sea.
Cresting the billows like silvery foam,
And then wheeling away to its cliff-built home!
What joy it must be, to sail, upborne
By a strong, free wing, through the rosy morn,
To meet the young sun face to face.
And pierce like a shaft the boundless space.
How pleasant the life of a bird must be,
Wherever it listeth there to flee;
To go, when a joyful fancy calls.
Bashing adown ‘mid the waterfalls,
Then wheeling about with its unite at play,
Above and below, and among the spray,
Hither and thither, with screams as wild
As the laughing mirth of a rosy child!
What a joy it must be, like a living breeze,
To flutter about ’mong the flowering trees;
Lightly to soar, and to see beneath
The wastes of the blossoming purple heath,
And the yellow furze, like fields of gold,
That gladdens some fairy region old!
On mountain tops, on the billowy sea,
On the leafy stems of the forest tree,
How pleasant the life of a bird must be.
by Mary Howitt
Mary Howitt was born as Mary Botham on 12 March 1799 in Coleford, Gloucestershire, England. She was a member of the Quaker denomination of Christianity. She was married to William Howitt on 16 April 1821. Mary Howitt became a writer and a poet, and translated works by Hans Christian Andersen and Frederika Bremer into English. She is known as the author of the poem, “The Spider and the Fly” (1829). Mary Howitt passed on at 88 years of age on 30 January 1888 in Rome, Italy.
How pleasant the life of a bird must be,
Flitting about in each leafy tree;
In the leafy trees so broad and tall,
Like a green and beautiful palace-hall,
With its airy chambers, light and boon,
That open to sun and stars and moon,
That open unto the bright, blue sky,
And the frolicsome winds as they wander by.
They have left their nest in the forest bough;
Those homes of delight they need not now;
And the young and the old. they wander out,
And traverse the green world round about;
And hark! at the top of this leafy hall.
How one to the other they lovingly call:
“Come up, come up,” they seem to say,
“Where the topmost twigs in the breezes sway.”
“Come up, come up, for the world is fair,
Where the merry leaves dance in the summer air.”
And the birds below give back the civ:
We come, we come, to the branches high!
How pleasant the life of a bird must be,
Flitting about in a leafy tree;
And away through the air what joy to go.
And look on the bright green earth below.
How pleasant the life of a bird must be,
Skimming about on the breezy sea.
Cresting the billows like silvery foam,
And then wheeling away to its cliff-built home!
What joy it must be, to sail, upborne
By a strong, free wing, through the rosy morn,
To meet the young sun face to face.
And pierce like a shaft the boundless space.
How pleasant the life of a bird must be,
Wherever it listeth there to flee;
To go, when a joyful fancy calls.
Bashing adown ‘mid the waterfalls,
Then wheeling about with its unite at play,
Above and below, and among the spray,
Hither and thither, with screams as wild
As the laughing mirth of a rosy child!
What a joy it must be, like a living breeze,
To flutter about ’mong the flowering trees;
Lightly to soar, and to see beneath
The wastes of the blossoming purple heath,
And the yellow furze, like fields of gold,
That gladdens some fairy region old!
On mountain tops, on the billowy sea,
On the leafy stems of the forest tree,
How pleasant the life of a bird must be.
by Mary Howitt
Mary Howitt was born as Mary Botham on 12 March 1799 in Coleford, Gloucestershire, England. She was a member of the Quaker denomination of Christianity. She was married to William Howitt on 16 April 1821. Mary Howitt became a writer and a poet, and translated works by Hans Christian Andersen and Frederika Bremer into English. She is known as the author of the poem, “The Spider and the Fly” (1829). Mary Howitt passed on at 88 years of age on 30 January 1888 in Rome, Italy.
Snail
He cannot fly.
He cannot hop.
He cannot run at all.
But you should see
The way he goes
Slowly up the wall.
He cannot skip
Or race about.
He has one way to go;
And as I watched him
I must say
He’s good at going slow.
by Author Unknown
He cannot fly.
He cannot hop.
He cannot run at all.
But you should see
The way he goes
Slowly up the wall.
He cannot skip
Or race about.
He has one way to go;
And as I watched him
I must say
He’s good at going slow.
by Author Unknown
The Squirrel’s Road
It zigzags through the pastures brown,
And climbs old Pine Hill to its crown,
With many a broken stake and rail,
And gaps where beds of ivy trail.
In hollows of its mossy top
The pine-cone and the acorn drop;
While, here and there, aloft is seen
A timid, waving plume of green,
Where some shy seed has taken hold
With slender roots in moss and mold.
The squirrel, on his frequent trips
With corn and mast between his lips,
Glides in and out from rail to rail,
With ears erect and flashing tail.
Sometimes he stops, his spoil laid by,
To frisk and chatter merrily,
Or wash his little elfin face,
With many a flirt and queer grimace.
Anon he scolds a passing crow,
Jerking his pert tail to and fro,
Or scurries like a frightened thief
At shadow of a falling leaf.
All day along his fence-top road
He bears his harvest, load by load;
The acorn with its little hat;
The butternut, egg-shaped and fat;
The farmer's corn, from shock and wain;
Cheek-pouches-full of mealy grain;
Three-cornered beechnuts, thin of shell;
The chestnut, burred and armored well;
And walnuts, with their tight green coats
Close buttoned round their slender throats.
A busy little workman he,
Who loves his task, yet labors free,
Stops when he wills, to frisk and bark,
And never drudges after dark!
I love to hear his chirring cry,
When rosy sunrise stains the sky,
And see him flashing in his toil,
While frost like snow encrusts the soil.
With tail above his back, he sails
Along the angles of the rails,
Content to gain two rods in three,
And have sure highway from his tree.
Dear is the old-time squirrel way,
With mosses green and lichens gray, -
The straggling fence, that girds the hill,
And wanders through the pine woods still.
I loved it in my boyhood time,
I loved it in my manhood's prime,
Would in the corn-field I could lie,
And watch the squirrels zigzag by!
by James Buckham
James Buckham, also known by the pseudonym Paul Pastnor, was born on 25 November 1858 in Burlington, Vermont, United States of America. He was a newspaper journalist, a periodical editor, an essayist, a poet, a speculative fiction writer, and a naturalist. He became known for his books of poetry: “The Heart of Life” (1897) and “A Wayside Altar” (1905), and for his books of essays: “Where Town and Country Meet” (1903), “Afield with the Seasons” (1907), and “The Heritage of Life” (1907). James Buckham passed on at 49 years of age on 8 January 1908 in Melrose, Massachusetts, United States of America.
It zigzags through the pastures brown,
And climbs old Pine Hill to its crown,
With many a broken stake and rail,
And gaps where beds of ivy trail.
In hollows of its mossy top
The pine-cone and the acorn drop;
While, here and there, aloft is seen
A timid, waving plume of green,
Where some shy seed has taken hold
With slender roots in moss and mold.
The squirrel, on his frequent trips
With corn and mast between his lips,
Glides in and out from rail to rail,
With ears erect and flashing tail.
Sometimes he stops, his spoil laid by,
To frisk and chatter merrily,
Or wash his little elfin face,
With many a flirt and queer grimace.
Anon he scolds a passing crow,
Jerking his pert tail to and fro,
Or scurries like a frightened thief
At shadow of a falling leaf.
All day along his fence-top road
He bears his harvest, load by load;
The acorn with its little hat;
The butternut, egg-shaped and fat;
The farmer's corn, from shock and wain;
Cheek-pouches-full of mealy grain;
Three-cornered beechnuts, thin of shell;
The chestnut, burred and armored well;
And walnuts, with their tight green coats
Close buttoned round their slender throats.
A busy little workman he,
Who loves his task, yet labors free,
Stops when he wills, to frisk and bark,
And never drudges after dark!
I love to hear his chirring cry,
When rosy sunrise stains the sky,
And see him flashing in his toil,
While frost like snow encrusts the soil.
With tail above his back, he sails
Along the angles of the rails,
Content to gain two rods in three,
And have sure highway from his tree.
Dear is the old-time squirrel way,
With mosses green and lichens gray, -
The straggling fence, that girds the hill,
And wanders through the pine woods still.
I loved it in my boyhood time,
I loved it in my manhood's prime,
Would in the corn-field I could lie,
And watch the squirrels zigzag by!
by James Buckham
James Buckham, also known by the pseudonym Paul Pastnor, was born on 25 November 1858 in Burlington, Vermont, United States of America. He was a newspaper journalist, a periodical editor, an essayist, a poet, a speculative fiction writer, and a naturalist. He became known for his books of poetry: “The Heart of Life” (1897) and “A Wayside Altar” (1905), and for his books of essays: “Where Town and Country Meet” (1903), “Afield with the Seasons” (1907), and “The Heritage of Life” (1907). James Buckham passed on at 49 years of age on 8 January 1908 in Melrose, Massachusetts, United States of America.
