Poetry Friday

I am on a Little House kick... again.  While I am spending long hours painting (and painting), I have been re-listening to all the stories on audio cd.  In the evenings, before I crash into a Sherwin-Williams scented sleep, I have been enjoying some of the other writings of Laura Ingalls Wilder, such as A Little House Reader and A Little House Sampler.  I never knew, before discovering these two books, what a prolific poet Laura was!  The poem below is one of my favorites.  It is on the first page of A Little House Reader and has no title attached to it:

 

Oh read me a story and let me forget

This brain racking worry, this wearying fret

Read me of when the harp was still strung

To the bold and free ditty the minstrel had sung;

When at my lord’s coming the joy bells were rung

When all hearts were merry and the world was still young

When honor was common and knavery rare

The men were all gallant, the women all fair:

And when sweetest sad music was heard in the air

Sailors knew that mermaidens were combing their hair.

So come read the tale, dear, and let us forget

This present day hurry and struggle and fret.

   

~ Laura Ingalls Wilder