Thursday, May 25, 2017

Paper Cuts of Children With a Pony

A girl and a boy lead a pony through a pasture.

A boy balances on a chair, a pony nips and pulls away.

A boy rides a pony and a girl greets him.

Sunday, May 14, 2017

The Train by C. H. Crandall

The Train
by C. H. Crandall

Hark!
It comes!
It hums!
With ear to ground
I catch the sound,
The warning courier-roar
That runs along before.
The pulsing, struggling, now is clearer!
The hillsides echo "nearer, nearer,"
Till like a drove of rushing, trampling
cattle,
With dust and wind and clang and 
Shriek and rattle,
Passes the cyclops of the train!
I see a fair face at the pane,--
Like a piano string
The rails, unburdened, sing;
The white smoke flies
Up to the skies;
The sound 
Is drowned--
Hark!

The Woodpecker

The Woodpecker
by Elizabeth Madox Roberts

The woodpecker pecked out a little round hole
And made him a house in the telephone pole.
One day when I watched he poked out his head,
And he had on a hood and a collar of red.

When the streams of rain pour out of the sky,
And the sparkles of lightning go flashing by,
And the big, big wheels of thunder roll
He can snuggle back in the telephone pole.

Woodpecker feeds here babies, well one of them anyhow.

The Sea Gull by Mary Howitt

The Sea Gull
by Mary Howitt

Oh, the white Sea-gull, the wild Sea-gull,
A joyful bird is he,
As he lies like a cradled thing at rest
In the arms of a sunny sea!
The little waves rock to and fro,
And the white gull lies asleep,
As the fisher's bark, with breeze and tide,
Goes merrily over the deep!

The ship, with her fair sails set, goes by,
And her people stand to note
How the Sea-gull sits on the rocking waves,
As if in an anchored boat.
The sea is fresh, the sea is fair,
And the sky calm overhead,
And the Sea-gull lies on the deep, deep sea.
Like a king in his royal bed.

The Caterpillar

The Caterpillar
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

Brown and furry
Caterpillar in a hurry;
Take your walk
To the shady leaf, or stalk.

May no toad spy you,
May the little birds pass by you;
Spin and die,
To live again a butterfly. 

This beautiful child has learned her caterpillar poem!

The Plains' Call...

The Plains' Call
by Arthur Chapman

I must ride out on the plains again,
With a horse 'twixt knee and knee,
Where the wolves howl and the winds growl,
And the clouds drift fast o'er me;
I must ride out on the plains once more,
On the Westland's broad and level floor.

I must ride forth on the plains at morn,
Where the cactus flowers are,
And the lark calls, and the white walls
Of the mountain loom afar;
I must ride out, when breaks the day--
Ride where the gods of outdoors play.

I must ride out on the plains at night,
And smell the dew wet sage,
When the moon glows, and the late snows
Gleam like a book's white page;
I must ride out on the plains again,
And quit this haunt of pygmy men.

Saturday, May 13, 2017

Rain In Summer

Rain In Summer
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

How beautiful is the rain!
After the dust and heat,
In the broad and fiery street,
In the narrow lane,
How beautiful is the rain!
How it clatters along the roofs
Like the tramp of hoofs!
How it gushes and struggles out
From the throat of the overflowing spout!

Across the window-pane
It pours and pours;
And swift and wide,
With a muddy tide,
Like a river down the gutter roars
The rain, the welcome rain!

This is absolutely adorable!
A baby girl and her father in the rain.

Thursday, May 11, 2017

When Winter Comes

Two squirrels gather nuts beneath a large oak in the forest.

When Winter Comes
by G. H. L.

When winter comes, the squirrels find
Some shelter from the winds unkind;
Some hollow tree where nuts they store,
Enough to last 'till winter's o'er;
There, safe from harm, they build their nest
And settle down to take a rest,
Their larder full of nuts and wheat,
All that they do is sleep and eat;
When winter comes, Ah me! I find
Some thoughtless ones of humankind,
Who never build a cozy nest, 
Prepare for time to take a rest;
Who when they strong north wind blows cold
Are friendless, helpless, hungry-old.

The Snow-Bird

Snowy pine or fir trees and a squirrel eating nuts.

The Snow-Bird 
by Williams Cullen Bryant

The snow-bird twittered on the beachen bough,
And 'neath the hemlock whose thick branches bent
Beneath its bright cold burden, and kept dry.
A circle, on the earth, of withered leaves,
The partridge found a shelter. Through the snow
The rabbit spring away. The lighter Track
Of fox, and the raccoon's broad paths were there,
Crossing each other. From his hollow tree
The squirrel was abroad, gathering the nuts
Just fallen, that asked the winter cold and sway 
Of winter blast, to shake them from their hold

This version was shortened and illustrated for school children. Read the original in it's entirety at the poetry foundation.

Paper cuts of sports and social occasions...

The following paper cuts depict everyday life during Jane Austen's era Ladies and gentlemen are dressed in Empire waist gowns and top hats with canes.
People play croquet, a lawn game using wickets, mallets and a wooden ball.

Gentlemen in the field for a hunt with their sporting dogs and rifles.

Ladies and gentlemen greeting one another with a curtsy and bow.

Two lovers sit on a park bench kissing while another vignette shows a mother with children approaching a column in a park setting.

Don't Belittle Little Things

Picture includes a puppy, bee, garden, flowers, cloudy day etc...
"Don't Belittle, Little Things"

A pup on a lark with a joyous bark,
In the clover was fanciful free.
He scampered amuck; stopped very abrupt,
When he chanced on a big bumblebee.
Now the bee looked up at the lazy pup,
The pup thereupon showed his teeth;
"I've got teeth too," said the bumblebee,
"Tho' I may be little and hard to see."
So he stung the pup with an angry buzz;
Now the pup's not so cocky as he used to wuz.

Old-fashioned figures in profile...

Below are old-fashioned silhouettes (paper cuts) of ladies and gentlemen from the Victorian era.
The greeting.

In mourning.

The argument.