Poem of the Week

This week's poem comes from a collection of Louis L'Amour's poems (Smoke From This Altar) and I must say, it's one of my favorites.  

To explain, a few years ago (while in high school) we took a Tennessee History class (just us siblings; our grandmother was the teacher and it was one of my favorite classes we ever took) that, at one point, required the students to watch the film Gone With the Wind.  Well, to say the least, we despise the movie.  Especially the character of Scarlett.  She just makes you want to slap some sense into her.  And Rhett Butler, too.  To tell him he needs to find himself a better girl.

Anyways, I came across this poem and had to post it.  Even though Gone With the Wind is not the "thing" now, like Twilight or The Hunger Games...  

Actually, Catlia mentioned re-writing this poem and entitle it "I Haven't Read Twilight". 

And we just may do it.

I Haven't Read Gone With the Wind

Louis L'Amour

I have read Shakespeare, Shelley, and Poe

What profit is in these?

I sit alone wherever I go

And strive to look at ease.

I crouch alone beside the wall

To avoid their eager look -

But no matter how I stall

They'll ask about that book.

I cannot check my sheepish blush,

My color comes and goes,

I redden to my finger-tips

And sometimes to my nose.

But they will leer and sneer at me -

Their eyes triumphant shine,

Tho for every book they've read

I've read forty-nine.

I wish I had their awful cheek -

I'd let them have their fling

Then stories I'd tell of Boccaccio

Not quite the proper thing;

Of Homer and Horace and Catullus

Hudson and Halleck and Hoffenstein -

For every single book they've read

I've read forty-nine.

No other title do they know,

The refrain is scarcely new -

Tho the chances are their knowledge

Came from a book review;

They ask me if I've read it -

I humbly whisper "No"

(Thank God, again I've said it!)

They clap their hands and glow.

I've read John Donne - I like to drift

Thru Plato, Plutarch, and Euripides;

I know Spinoza - I've read Dean Swift,
And Stendhal, or Sterne, or Maimonidies.
I've read Wycherley, and read Sam Pepys
Not quite so funny, but subtler -
In spite of all that I'm down in the deeps
I know nothing about Rhett Butler!

I'm familiar with Falstaff, Dido, and Puck
But no one gives me a tumble -
I've done my reading - I'll have no truck
With the thousands who chortle and rumble,
And talk about Butler and Scarlett O'Hare.
Did she right? Did she wrong? they gasp and exclaim -
If she'd morals or not, I don't seem to care
But I'm plucking the coverlet over that name.

I'm almost a social outcast now
For no matter where I go,
They crowd around and ask me
Be it concert, party, show -
I hesitate as in a dream
One would almost think I'd sinned
But if another asks me, I will scream
NO! I haven't read Gone With the Wind!

Have a great week!
Blessings,
Elisera

Coming soon:  A summary of our week in the hayfield and garden, and some pics of a walk in the creek!

Check out our mama's blog to see pictures of A Lesson in Beekeeping and her pics of our days in the Hayfield (Part 1, Part 2).