Poetry for Kids

"The Arrow and the Song" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"A Poem Is..." are mini segments which air on Disney Junior that I often catch passing through the house while my sister watches the channel. I love how the kids interpret poems, and, frankly, the plain fact that Disney is promoting works from poets like Robert Louis Steven and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to such young children! The poems are matched up with Disney movies to help convey the meaning of the poem and to keep the child interested. Really, I probably enjoy it more than the children, but that's okay too.

"My Shadow" by Robert Louis Stevenson

"What Lips My Lips Have Kissed" by Edna St. Vincent Millay

“What Lips My Lips Have Kissed”

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,

I have forgotten, and what arms have lain

Under my head till morning; but the rain

Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh

Upon the glass and listen for reply;

And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain

For unremembered lads that not again

Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.

Thus in the winter stands a lonely tree,

Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,

Yet know its boughs more silent than before:

I cannot say what loves have come and gone;

I only know that summer sang in me

A little while, that in me sings no more.

-Edna St. Vincent Millay


In the poem "What Lips My Lips Have Kissed," the speaker feels particularly alone as a rainstorm pounds on her windows. She painfully recalls the company and love of men, whom she once had with her during these nights, that will never again come for her. Although she cannot remember each individual man, she misses the companionship and love all the same.

The speaker goes on to compare her loneliness to a tree, who does not know how many or which birds have come and gone, like the speaker and her men, but the tree is still alone all the same. She continues this to mark how summer once encompassed her, but now she has become like a tree in the winter: alone and lifeless.The saddened tone help to mark the overall emotion that stands out in the poem, that of hopelessness and abandonment.

Personally, "What Lips My Lips Have Kissed" may just be my favorite Millay poem. I just love the metaphor she draws between her own loneliness and the that of a tree, barren and bereft in the wintertime. Also, one of my favorite, most loved lines of all time appear here:

"I cannot say what loves have come and gone;
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more" (lines 12-14)

I think Millay is so perfect at capturing emotion, whether it is wonder in "First Fig," or elation in "Recuerdo". Those last three lines of "What Lips My Lips Have Kissed" hit the reader, so that they can truly understand the complete abandonment the speaker feels.

"Recuerdo" by Edna St. Vincent Millay

“Recuerdo”

We were very tired, we were very merry–

We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.

It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable–

But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,

We lay on a hill-top underneath the moon;                             

And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.

We were very tired, we were very merry–

We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry;

And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,

From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;                    

And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold,

And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.

We were very tired, we were very merry,

We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.

We hailed, "Good morrow, mother!" to a shawl-covered head,         

And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read;

And she wept, "God bless you!" for the apples and pears,

And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.

-Edna St. Vincent Millay

In Edna St. Vincent Millay's poem "Recuerdo," a couple enjoys a night of riding back and forth on a ferry, staying out all night and stopping off at different places. The couple go to dinner, lie on a hilltop and look at the sky, and buy apples and pears that they eat as they watch the sun rise. In the morning they see a poor woman who they buy a morning paper from that they never read, and give her all of their apples and pears, as well as all the money they have besides their subway fare. The poem closes with the woman being so grateful she cries and blesses the two.

What is so beautiful about this poem is the sense we get from the speaker. It would sound as if she was a young girl, experiencing love for the first time and wanting to remember every bit of it. The title is even called "Recuerdo," literally "to remember" in Spanish. Also, probably the most distinct aspect to this poem is the repetition. "We were very tired, we were very merry–/We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry;" appears as the first two lines of each of the three stanzas. She stresses this, as if this sheer fact of staying out all night, exhausted and elated, is all she needs to convey to her audience the excitement of it all. She repeats this in the first two lines of each stanza, and the other lines are what tell the story.


The rhyme scheme is also very consistent throughout: AABBCC AADDEE AAFFGG, in this eighteen line poem, every two lines rhyme with each other. It helps draw continuity in the sometimes scattered thoughts of the young girl in her excitement.

The tone is whimsical and magical. Everything about the night they had was perfect, the night, “...we lay on a hill-top underneath the moon,” (line 5) even the ending of it all, when “...the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold” (line 12). The descriptions of the events in this way shape the tone to make it one of fantasy and elation. The poem serves to capture the memory of one meaningful night, where the narrator spends all night out and has difficulty explaining in words, thus the repetition of the first two lines, just how special it truly was.

"I wandered lonely as a cloud" by William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed---and gazed---but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth

The story being told in Wordsworth's poem "I wandered lonely as a cloud" belongs to the narrator and his experience walking beside a lake. He talks about how the water is beautiful, yet the bright yellow, dancing daffodils outshine all of the scenery combined, as if the daffodils are the sun and everything surrounding it is just the black abyss of space.

Wordsworth wrote in a time where nature was the paramount topic for writing, along with love and time. He compares himself to the cloud in the first line, yet later discusses the human qualities of the daffodils, "tossing their heads in a sprightly dance" and "dancing in the breeze".  Here, the unity between man and nature is expressed, so much so that the human and nature can be interchanged between one another. The poet remarks that his "heart with pleasure fills/and dances with the daffodils," and the two dance together as one being.

The picturesque nature scene being described is what the poet reflects on in his "vacant or pensive mood". He says that just one memory of the day will let his heart fly and truly "dance(s) with the daffodils." He did not know how lucky he was and how overjoyed it made him at the time, but he understands, now, every time he remembers the scene.

Some Favorite Poems

An Analysis of "Bright Star"

After discussing the poem "Bright Star" by John Keats several times here, and having been studying it for Poetry Out Loud, I think it deserves a complete analysis.

What I see when I look at the poem, is the narrating voice, likely Keats, to be first introducing the idea of eternity and consistency in comparison to a star. He wishes to be as "steadfast as thou art," speaking directly to the star. However, he then dismisses all other qualities of the star, not alone, looking from above onto the world below as sleepless creature, something that no human could ever be.

No, this star is unreal to us. "No--yet still stedfast, still unchangeable-- Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast," says lines 9-10. What is truly being asked is for the constant nature the star possesses, the eternity it gets to live. Contrasting with the star is the impermanence of life, the "ripening breast" implying change and movement of humans not seen in the lines preceding it in reference to the star.

The eternity being asked for is not the infinite time a star experiences, but a forever of love and passion on Earth. Only in the final line does Keats accept the possibility of dying in pleasure over living in harmony forever.

The poem asks for the lifetime of a star, yet the narrator cannot relate to what the star is, in itself. He is asking for something entirely inhuman and impossible. Keats struggles to cope with the rush of time on Earth as human, when stars existing above Earth live forever. In the final line, he says he will go willingly if he can die in love if he cannot exist forever. Keats died away from his love, Fanny Brawne, at the age of 25 in Rome, Italy.