New Picture on the Blog Header

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Just briefly, in case you're wondering, the new picture I've put up on the blog header is another from the wonderful legacy of Jessie Willcox Smith. This one I've always known as 'Picture Books In Winter' from the famous poem by Robert Louis Stevenson. As summer comes to a close and the autumn makes it's presence known with greater emphasis each day, this is a poem I often think of...one I loved as a child. (you can find it in the classic collection "A Child's Garden of Verse" by Stevenson...yes, indeed, the same man who gave us 'Treasure Island' and 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde', among other great classics.)

Picture-books in Winter
by Robert Louis Stevenson  
Summer fading, winter comes--
Frosty mornings, tingling thumbs,
Window robins, winter rooks,
And the picture story-books.

Water now is turned to stone
Nurse and I can walk upon;
Still we find the flowing brooks
In the picture story-books.

All the pretty things put by,
Wait upon the children's eye,
Sheep and shepherds, trees and crooks,
In the picture story-books.

We may see how all things are
Seas and cities, near and far,
And the flying fairies' looks,
In the picture story-books.

How am I to sing your praise,
Happy chimney-corner days,
Sitting safe in nursery nooks,
Reading picture story-books?

 

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