5th Grade Poem Recitations
Term 2
There are eight poems to choose from. Please read through them and write
down the two your child would like to do. The choices are due Friday,
November 4th. We will let your child know that day which poem to memorize.
Poems need to be memorized by December 5th. Students will present them
that week: December 5th – 9th.
Thanks and Happy Memorizing!
Hobble Creek 5th Grade Teachers
(Keep the poems at home and return this slip!)
My signature indicates I have reviewed the information about the Term 2
Poems with my child.
Student name: _______________________________________________________________
Parent signature: _____________________________________________________________
Choice 1: ______________________________________________________________________
Choice 2: _____________________________________________________________________
Please return this by Friday, November 4th. 
“The Road Not Taken”
Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference
“I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
I heard the bells on Christmas day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
I thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along the unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
And in despair I bowed my head
'There is no peace on earth,' I said,
'For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.'
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
'God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth, good will to men.'
Till ringing, singing on its way
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
“The Lake”
Edgar Allan Poe
In youth’s spring, it was my lot
To haunt of the wide earth a spot
The which I could not love the less;
So lovely was the loneliness
Of a wild lake, with black rock bound,
And the tall pines that tower’d around.
But when the night had thrown her pall
Upon that spot—as upon all,
And the wind would pass me by
In its still melody,
My infant spirit would awake
To the terror of that lone lake.
Yet that terror was not fright—
But a tremulous delight,
And a feeling undefin’d
Springing from a darken’d mind.
Death was in the poin’d wave
And in its gulf a fitting rave
For him who thence could solace bring
To his dark imagining;
Whose wild’ring thought could even make
And Eden of that dim lake.
Excerpt from “Ring Out, Wild Bells”
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
“The First Snow”
Robert Freeman Bound
We waited for hours,
As children all will,
After Father had told us
The news with a thrill:
Then early that evening
The first flakes descended;
And when we retired
The fall hadn’t ended
‘Twas the oddest sensation
When we’d gaze at the sky;
We seemed to be falling,
But we didn’t know why.
We looked from our beds
At a white, silent scene
Of tall, pearly trees
And the buildings between.
Next morning the light
Reflected from snow
Made shimmering patterns
With walls all aglow;
And our happy, old dog,
With great barking leaps,
Was chasing a rabbit
Through high, snowy heaps.
From lowering clouds
And a temperature fall,
The first snow of winter
Would come with a squall.
Oh, the wonderful joy
To be young and know
The thrill of a child
At winter’s first snow.
“Pilgrim Song – Then and Now”
George Lunt
Over the mountain wave
See where they come;
Storm cloud and wintry wind
Welcome them home;
Yet, where the sounding gale
Howls to the sea,
There their song peals along
Deep seated and free
“Pilgrims and wanderers,
Hither we come;
Where the free dare to be—
This is our home!”
Dim grew the finest path;
Onward they trod;
Firm beat their noble hearts,
Trusting in God;
Gray men and blooming maids,
High rose their song
Hear it sweep, clear and deep,
Ever along—
“Pilgrim and wanderers,
Hither we come;
Where the free dare to be—
This is our home!”
Green be their mossy graves!
Ours be their fame,
While their song peals along
Ever the same;
“Pilgrims and wanderers,
Hither we come;
Where the free dare to be—
This is our home!”
“The Pilgrims Came”
Annette Wynne
The Pilgrims came across the sea,
And never thought of you and me;
And yet it’s very strange the way
We think of them Thanksgiving Day.
We tell their story old and true
Of how they sailed across the blue,
And found a new land to be free
And built their homes quite near the sea.
The people think that they were sad,
And grave; I’m sure that they were glad—
They made Thanksgiving Day—that’s fun—
We thank the Pilgrims every one!
“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”
Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.