Poems, Limericks

Eve Merriam

Asking Questions

Grown-ups seldom listen

when they ask, "How old are you?"

All they want to do is say,

"Why, it seems like yesterday

That you were only two!"

The next one who asks me,

I'll tell, "I'm ninety-three."

Manners

When parents are polite to you and say "Please,"

It comes out as sort as cooked green peas.

But when they get angry and they still say "Please,"

Then it sounds more like a sneeze: Pulleeeaaazzze!

Rose Fyleman

The Birthday Child

Everything's been different

All the day long,

Lovely things have happened,

Nothing has gone wrong.

Nobody has scolded me,

Everyone has smiled.

Isn't it delicious

To be a birthday child?

William Henry Davies

School's Out

Girls scream, boys shout;

Dogs bark, School's out.

Cats run, horses shy;

Into trees birds fly.

Henry W. Longfellow

Children

Come to me, 0 ye children!

For I hear you at your play,

And the questions that perplexed me

Have vanished quite away.

Ye open the eastern windows,

That look towards the sun,

Where thoughts are singing swallows,

And the brooks of morning run.

In your hearts are the birds and the suhshine,

In your thoughts the brooklet's flow,

But in mine is the wind of Autumn

And the first fall of the snow.

Ah! what would the world be to us

If the children were no more?

We should dread the desert behind us

Worse than the dark before.

Come to me, 0 ye children!

And whisper in my ear

What the birds and the winds are singing

In your sunny atmosphere.

Ye are better than all the ballads

That ever were sung or said;

For ye are living poems,

And all the rest are dead.

There once was a student named Bessor,

Whose knowledge grew lessor and lessor.

It at last grew so small

He knew nothing at all,

And today he's a college professor!

A.B. Ramsay

No teacher I of boys or smaller fry,

No teacher I of teachers, no, not I.

Mine was the distant aim, the longer reach,

To teach men how to teach men how to teach.

Edward Anthony

Duty of the Student

It is the duty of the student

Without exception to be prudent.

If smarter than his teacher, tact

Demands that he conceal the fact.

Keith Preston

The healthy human child will keep

Away from home, except to sleep.

Were it not for the common cold,

Our young we never would behold.

Walter De La Mare

The more we study, the more we know,

The more we know, the more we forget.

The more we forget, the less we know.

The less we know, the less we forget.

The less we forget, the more we know.

Why study?

Philosophic Advice

He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not;

he is a fool; shun him.

He who knows not, and knows that he knows not;

he is simple, teach him.

He who knows, and knows not that he knows;

he is asleep, wake him.

He who knows, and knows that he knows;

he is wise, follow him