The Secret Place (Monday Poem)

by Dennis Lee

 

 

There's a place I go, inside myself,

Where nobody else can be,

And none of my friends can tell it's there --

Nobody knows but me.

It's hard to explain the way it feels,

Or even where I go.

It isn't a place in time or space,

But once I'm there, I know.

 

It's tiny, it's shiny, it can't be seen,

But it's big as the sky at night. . . 

I try to explain and it hurts my brain,

But once I'm there, it's right.

 

There's a place I know inside myself.

And it's neither big nor small,

And whenever I go, it feels as though

I never left at all.

from Poetry by Heart: A Child's Book of Poems to Remember

compiled by Liz Attenborough

Scholastic 2001

There Isn't Time (Monday Poem)

 by Eleanor Farjeon

There isn't time, there isn't time

To do the things I want to do,

With all the mountain-tops to climb,

And all the woods to wander through,

And all the seas to sail upon,

And everywhere there is to go,

And all the people, every on

Who lives upon the earth to know.

There's only time, there's only time

To know a few, and do a few,

And then sit down and make a rhyme

About the rest I want to do.

from Poetry by Heart: A Child's Book of Poems to Remember

compiled by Liz Attenborough

Scholastic 2001

Give Yourself a Hug (Monday Poem)

 by Grace Nichols

Give yourself a hug

when you feel unloved

Give yourself a hug

when people put on airs

to make you feel a bug

Give yourself a hug

when everyone seems to give you

a cold-shoulder shrug

Give yourself a hug --

a big big hug

And keep on singing,

'Only one in million like me

Only one in a million-billion-thrillion-zillion

like me.'

from Poetry by Heart: A Child's Book of Poems to Remember

compiled by Liz Attenborough

Scholastic 2001

The Eagle (Monday Poem)

 by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;

Close to the sun in lonely lands,

Ringed with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;

He watches from his mountain walls,

And like a thunderbolt he falls.

from Poetry by Heart: A Child's Book of Poems to Remember

compiled by Liz Attenborough

Scholastic 2001

And My Heart Soars (Monday Poem)

 by Chief Dan George

The beauty of the trees,

the softness of the air,

the fragrance of the grass,

    speaks to me.

The summit of the mountain,

the thunder of the sky,

the rhythm of the sea,

    speaks to me.

The faintness of the stars,

the freshness of the morning,

the dew drop on the flower,

    speaks to me.

The strength of fire,

the taste of salmon,

the trail of the sun,

And the life that never goes away,

    They speak to me.

And my heart soars.

from The Family Read-Aloud Holiday Treasury

selected by Alice Low, illustrated by Marc Brown

Little, Brown and Company, 1991