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| Puzzle - Find Columbia |
Columbia
by Helen Hudson
We're very patriotic
As you can plainly see.
This birthday of our country
We celebrate with glee.
Columbia guides our footsteps
And, where her path may go,
We'll march along right valiantly
Though mighty be the foe!
Harry Hippopotamus
by Helen Cowles LeCron
Now Harry Hippopotamus had
such a heavy tread
That when he ran about the house his
mother often said,
"Good gracious, Harry, softly, please!
Your stamping hurts my head!
Besides, you'll wake the baby, who is
fast asleep in bed!
Why, Harry, one would really think
your feet were made of lead!"
I like to think that long ago a change
was seen in Harry,
And he became as graceful and as
lightsome and as airy
As any meadow butterfly or any
woodland fairy!
Who knows? Perhaps the change has
made his parents glad and merry.
(And yet, an agile hippo would be far
from ordinary!)
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| It takes only five steps to draw this woodchuck. |
Woodchucks have very coarse hair, a heavy body, short bushy tail, powerful legs and feet that are made perfect for digging. Farmers do not always like them because they can do great damage to a garden or crops. In February the second he wakes from his long winter sleep and appears at the mouth of his burrow, if he sees his shadow it is supposed to be a sign of six more weeks of cold weather!
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| You can draw a weasel in just five steps too! |
Sometimes farmers do not like weasels because they can kill chickens. But many people love to make coats from this furry little creatures coat! For in the winter time he has a snow white coat, except the tip of his tail which is black. Sometimes he is called an ermine but when spring comes his coat turns reddish brown and then he is called a weasel.
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| This opossum took six steps to draw. |
An opossum is about the size of a cat and is noted for being very cunning. It has a very long tail which it likes to hang by, head down from a branch. Of course you have heard of "playing possum" which means to play dead; the opossum does this when it is threatened.
The first thing in drawing is to understand the form of the object or animal you wish to picture. Some animals are oddly shaped or so full of details that students must stop to first give a minute or two in the study of the critter. Find the general outlines of the foxes' head with his ears pricked up and alert. You can see that the ears and head included his snout form four distinct triangles. Once you have drawn these, move on to filling in the smaller details like his nose, his whiskers, and eyes. The rest of his head then may be easily filled out.
Draw three interesting birds: the peacock, the ostrich and the blue jay, using simple shapes. Step-by-step illustrations are shown below so that young students may discover just how simple it is the accomplish these drawing exercises.
When you first look at a Peacock you might think he would be difficult to draw. But if you just break down his body into simple shapes starting with an oval, drawing becomes simple. Add a head, then his feet, next his wings and last his beautiful tail.
Start with a circle to draw the ostrich. Some say that if he can't see you, he thinks that you can't see him. He is the largest bird in the world and can't even fly! But how he can run and kick with those giant long legs of his!
THE LOVE OF NATURE
by Wordsworth
The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion ; the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colors and their forms, were then to me
An appetite, a feeling and a love
That had no need of a remoter charm
By thought supplied, or any interest
Unborrowed from the eye.
That time is past,
And all its aching joys are now no more,
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this
Faint I, nor mourn, nor murmur ; other gifts
Have followed, for such loss, I would believe,
Abundant recompense. For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftimes
The still sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh, nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue.
And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts ; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean, and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man ;
A motion and a spirit that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought.
And rolls through all things.
Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods
And mountains, and of all that we behold
From this green earth ; of all the mighty world
Of eye and ear, both what they have create
And what perceive ; well pleased to recogni/e
In nature, and the language of the sense,
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being
Visit Midwestern Arboretums:
THE OAK by George Hill
A glorious tree is the old gray oak;
He has stood for a thousand years
Has stood and frowned
On the trees around,
Like a king among his peers;
As around their king they stand, so now,
When the flowers their pale leaves fold
The tall trees round him stand, arrayed
In their robes of purple and gold.
He has stood like a tower
Through sun and shower,
And dared the winds to battle ;
He has heard the hail,
As from plates of mail,
From his own limbs shaken, rattle ;
He has tossed them about, and shorn the tops
(When the storm has roused his might)
Of the forest trees, as a strong man doth
The heads of his foes in fight.
PLANT A TREE by Lucy Larcom
He who plants a tree
Plants a hope.
Rootlets up through fibres blindly grope;
Leaves unfold into horizons free.
So man's life must climb
From the clouds of time
Unto heavens sublime.
Canst thou prophesy, thou little tree,
What the glory of thy boughs shall be?
He who plants a tree
Plants a joy;
Plants a comfort that will never cloy.
Every day a fresh reality.
Beautiful and strong,
To whoso shelter throng
Creatures blithe with song.
If thou couldst but know thou happy tree,
Of the bliss that shall inhabit thee.
He who plants a tree
He plants peace.
Under its green curtains jargons cease,
Leaf and zephyr murmur soothingly;
Shadows soft with sleep
Down tired eyelids creep,
Balm of slumber deep.
Never hast thou dreamed, thou blessed tree,
Of the benediction thou shalt be.
He who plants a tree
He plants youth;
Vigor won for centuries in sooth;
Life of time, that hints eternity!
Boughs their strength uprear,
New shoots every year
On old growths appear.
Thou shalt teach the ages, sturdy tree,
Youth of soul is immortality.
He who plants a tree
He plants love;
Tents of coolness spreading out above
Wayfarers, he may not live to see
Gifts that grow are best;
Hands that bless are blest;
Plant, life does the rest!
Heaven and earth help him who plants a tree,
And his work its own reward shall be.
THE FOREST TREES by Eliza Cook
Up with your heads, ye sylvan lords,
Wave proudly in the breeze,
For our cradle bands and coffin boards
Must come from the forest trees.
We bless ye for your summer shade,
When our weak limbs fail and tire;
Our thanks are due for your winter aid,
When we pile the bright log tire.
Oh! where would be our rule on the sea,
And the fame of the sailor band,
Were it not for the oak and cloud-crowned pine,
That spring on the quiet land?
When the ribs and masts of the good ship live,
And weather the gale with ease,
Take his glass from the tar who will not give
A health to the forest trees.
Ye lend to life its earliest joy,
And wait on its latest page;
In the circling hoop for the rosy boy,
And the easy chair for age.
The old man totters on his way,
With footsteps short and slow ;
But without the stick for his help and stay
Not a yard's length could he go.
The hazel twig in the stripling's hand
Hath magic power to please ;
And the trusty staff and slender wand
Are plucked from the forest trees.
Ye are seen in the shape of the old hand loom
And the merry ringing flail;
Ye shine in the dome of the monarch's home
And the sacred altar rail.
In the rustic porch, the wainscotted wall,
In the gay triumphal car;
In the rude built hut or the banquet hall,
No matter! there ye are!
Then up with your heads, ye sylvan lords!
Wave proudly in the breeze;
From our cradle bands to our coffin boards
We're in debt to the forest trees.
A FOREST HYMN by Bryant
The groves were God's first temples. Ere man learned
To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave,
And spread the roof above them ere he framed
The lofty vault, to gather and roll back
The sound of anthems; in the darkling wood,
Amid the cool and silence, he knelt down,
And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks
And supplication. For his simple heart
Might not resist the sacred influence
Which, from the stilly twilight of the place,
And from the gray old trunks that high in heaven
Mingled their mossy boughs, and from the sound
Of the invisible breath that swayed at once
All their green tops, stole over him, and bowed
His spirit with the thought of boundless power
And inaccessible majesty. Ah why,
Should we, in the world's riper years, neglect
God's ancient sanctuaries, and adore
Only among the crowd, and under roofs
That our frail hands have raised? Let me at least,
Here in the shadow of this aged wood,
Offer one hymn thrice happy, if it find
Acceptance in His ear.
Father, thy hand
Hath reared these venerable columns. Thou
Didst weave this verdant roof. Thou didst look down
Upon the naked earth, and, forthwith, rose
All these fair ranks of trees. They, in thy sun,
Budded, and shook their green leaves in thy breeze,
And shot toward heaven. The century-living crow
Whose birth was in their tops, grew old and died
Among their branches, till at last they stood,
As now they stand, massy, and tall, and dark,
Fit shrine for humble worshipper to hold
Communion with his Maker.
Thou hast not left
Thyself without a witness in these shades.
Of thy perfections. Grandeur, strength and grace
Are here to speak of Thee. This mighty oak
By whose immovable stem I stand and seem
Almost annihilated not a prince,
In all that proud old world beyond the deep,
E'er wore his crown as loftily as he
Wears the green coronal of leaves with which
Thy hand has graced him. Nestled at his root
Is beauty, such as blooms not in the glare
Of the broad sun. That delicate forest flower,
With scented breath and look so like a smile,
Seems, as it issues from the shapeless mould,
An emanation of the indwelling Life,
A visible token of the upholding Love,
That are the soul of this wide universe.