I have a thing for little old books. My favorites are the ones that fit right inside your hand, with cloth covers! They are just so fun! When I graduated in May, one of my gifts was an old book. Now if you have read any of my Book and Literature Articles, you know how much I adore old books! This particular book came from my Grandma. I got it when we went down to see her on vacation. She has a whole bookcase full of old books and I was able to look through some of them WOW! That was so great. The specific book she gave me is called “Adventures In American Literature“. I haven’t been able to read through hardly anything in it except for the index, but I simply cannot wait to dive into it. Some of the contents are:

The Short Story which includes stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne, O. Henry, Edgar Allen Poe, Jack London, Washington Irving, among others.

The Essay which includes works by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Washington Irving, and many more.

Biography and Autobiography with works by Benjamin Franklin, Theodore Roosevelt, and others.

Historic Milestones with works by Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, James Monroe and others.

Folk Literature includes songs by different genres. Poetry has so many poems by many popular authors.

Early Northern Poetry with poems by Emerson, Longfellow, Whittier, Holmes, Poe, Whitman, Dickinson, Riley, and much more!

Twentieth Century Poetry

Humorous Poetry

Drama

and finally

History of American Literature: A Review and Reinterpretation with some truly amazing articles!

It even has lists of novels to read and biographies of many authors of the different centuries.

I am just so excited to have received this book. When I was flipping through the pages, I found some papers in it. There is one that has writing from my Great Grandpa Duvall. It’s about John Greenleaf Whittier and what he thought about the author. It is really neat to read. I really don’t know much about my Great Grandpa, and this little piece of paper is him. It’s my heritage and it is so special!

A couple years ago, our library was getting a new librarian and she got rid of a lot of the old books to replace them with new ones… don’t ask! Anyway… she had a sale for these library books, and we were able to purchase so many of them! Our bookshelves are lined with old, good books and it is so nice to see them there!

Another great place that has old looking books that fit right into your hands are Lamplighters! These books are so good! If you haven’t read one, you are missing out. They use such amazing examples to bring forth little nuggets of how you are supposed to be as a Christian. Those little books are such an encouragement! The HSB Literary Club is going to be starting a new book on September 3rd. If you hurry you can have time to join! I know we would love to have you! Let’s Read! together!

Do you like old books?
What do you like best about them compared to the way new books are?
What are your favorites?
Do any of them hold any sentimental value from when you were growing up?

I would love to know what your answers are those questions and anything else you like about this article!

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I am so happy that spring has finally come! what a glorious time it is to see all of God’s creation come to life and bloom in His beauty!
I have recently decided I love spring almost as much as I love summer. It is so awesome to see the grass turn green, the trees get their leaves on the branches, the flowers bloom, and the fruit trees blossoming with beautiful flowers that will turn in to delicious fruit!

I was a little stuck as what to do today, but then I thought that I hadn’t really done any poetry. I am not a big poem fan, so its not something I think of! haha!
Here are some poems for your pleasure on the beauty and loveliness of spring!

Two Tramps in Mud Time
The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You’re one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you’re two months back in the middle of March.

by Robert Frost

A Prayer in Spring
Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year. Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;
And make us happy in the happy bees,
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees. And make us happy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts with needle bill,
And off a blossom in mid-air stands still. For this is love and nothing else is love,
The which it is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends He will,
But which it only needs that we fulfill.

by Robert Frost

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant.
If we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.

by Anne Bradstreet

If Spring came but once in a century, instead of once a year,
or burst forth with the sound of an earthquake,
and not in silence, what wonder and expectation there would
be in all hearts to behold the miraculous change!
But now the silent succession suggests nothing but necessity.
To most men only the cessation of the miracle would be
miraculous and the perpetual exercise of God’s power
seems less wonderful than its withdrawal would be.”

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Nature: April
An altered look about the hills;
A Tyrian light the village fills;
A wider sunrise in the dawn;
A deeper twilight on the lawn;
A print of a vermilion foot;
A purple finger on the slope;
A flippant fly upon the pane;
A spider at his trade again;
An added strut in chanticleer;
A flower expected everywhere …”

Emily Dickinson

Flower in the Crannied Wall
Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower–but if I could understand What you are,
root and all, all in all,
I should know what God and man is.”

by Lord Alfred Tennyson

Sonnet 98
From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April dress’d in all his trim
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,
That heavy Saturn laugh’d and leap’d with him.
Yet nor the lays of birds nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odour and in hue
Could make me any summer’s story tell,
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew;
Nor did I wonder at the lily’s white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;
They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
Yet seem’d it winter still, and, you away,
As with your shadow I with these did play.”

by William Shakespeare

The Year’s at the Spring
The year’s at spring
And day’s at the morn;
Morning’s at seven;
The hill sides’s dew-pearled;
The lark’s on the wing;
The snail’s on the thorn;
God’s in his heaven -
All’s right with the world!”
by Robert Browning

April
For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;
the flowers appear on the earth;
the time of the singing of birds is come,
and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.”
- Song of Solomon ‘Tis the noon of the spring-time,
Yet never a bird In the wind-shaked elm or the maple is heard;
For green meadow-grasses wide levels of snow,
And blowing of drifts where the crocus should blow;
Where wind-flower and violet, amber and white;
On south-sloping brooksides should smile in the light,
O’er the cold winter-beds of their late-waking roots
The frosty flake eddies, the ice crystal shoots;
And, longing for light, under wind-driven heaps,
Round the boles of the pine-wood the ground-laurel creeps,
Unkissed of the sunshine, unbaptized of showers,
With buds scarcely swelled, which should burst into flowers!”

by John Greenleaf Whittier

Lines Written in Early Spring
Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
The periwinkle trails its wreath;
And ’tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes. The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts I cannot measure;
But the least motion which they made,
It seemed a thrill of pleasure. The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can
That there was pleasure there. If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature’s holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?”

by William Wordsworth

Beneath these fruit-tree boughs that shed
Their snow-white blossoms on my head,
With brightest sunshine round me spread
Of spring’s unclouded weather,
In this sequestered nook how sweet
To sit upon my orchard-seat!
And birds and flowers once more to greet,
My last year’s friends together.”

by William Wordsworth

Spring is the Period
Spring is the Period
Express from God.
Among the other seasons
Himself abide,

But during March and April
None stir abroad
Without a cordial interview
With God.”
by Emily Dickinson

I hope you enjoyed these. I did. Take time this spring to smell the flowers, watch the clouds and love the creation that God has given us!
Prayers and Blessings!

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