A Poem for the Spring: God Help the Boy

My 8 year old is reading to me from The Christian Liberty Nature Reader Book 1. He reads aloud a section, I narrate. My narrations are getting better -- I no longer say "um, and, um, and..." quite so much. And I'm appreciating insects a wee bit more.

This evening I flipped through the book and came across a poem in the back entitled "The Boy the Never Sees" listed as Author Unknown. I did a Google Book Search and found the poem in a book called Public School Methods, orginially published in 1918 with the title as "God Help the Boy" by Nixon Waterman.

Enjoy!

GOD HELP THE BOY

God help the boy who never sees
The butterflies, the birds, the bees,
Nor hears the music of the breeze
When zephyrs soft are blowing.

Who can not in sweet comfort lie
Where clover blooms are thick and high,
And hear the gentle murmur nigh
Of brooklets softly flowing.

God help the boy who does not know
Where all the woodland berries grow,
Who never sees the forests glow
When leaves are red and yellow.

Whose childish feet can never stray
When nature does her charms display--
For such a hapless boy, I say
God help the little fellow.

Nixon Waterman.

I really need a message board/blog break (not that I've been posting or commenting much lately, but I need an actual, physical break). Leave a comment if you like and I'll come visit you in a month or so!

Wordless Wednesday

Top 10: Nature Journal Excuses Edition

Recently, I was mistaken for a nature journal girl! Doesn't that have a nice ring to it? Someday maybe it will even be true!

Afterall, I own such books as by Clare Walker Leslie's Keeping a Nature Journal, Karen Andreola's Pocketful of Pinecones, and Robert Louv's Last Child in the Woods. I've even read them. And my own sister is the Land Steward at a nature center in Iowa! Obviously, between my books and family relations, I should have notebooks full...

But instead of an inspiring photo of a page in my nature journal, I give you my Top 10 reasons why I haven't done "Nature Study."

10. With photo stories like The Robin's Nest who needs to go outside anyway?
9. I don't live near any cool nature places, just hot-desert-scorpion types.
8. Paper taken outside gets crumply, windblown, dirty, bugs land on it, etc.
7. I never know what to draw, there are just too many choices.
6. I can't draw things from life anyway, especially moving things.
5. Many of those moving choices are bugs...
4. I never know what things are called...in English or Latin.
3. I don't enjoy trailing 5 children on a nature journal hike anymore than I enjoy taking them all to the library (now that could be a post in itself).
2. I don't have a sketchbook of my own.
1. It is too HOT to be outside.

Fortunately, reason #1 will be removed within 2 months or so. And surely by then I'll have bought a sketchbook and #2 will be gone also. Perhaps I'll be able to whittle away at the rest as well...