The Buckley School's founder believed all public speakers should hone their presentation skills by reading poetry out loud. We keep that worthwhile practice alive by including a poem in our magazine each month for you to read aloud.
"And then the cold came, the dark days when fear crept into my mind. You gave me all your love and all I gave you was goodbye."
– Taylor Swift lyrics from "Back to December"
A Google search won't turn up much about American poet Fannie Isabelle Sherrick, but it will leave you wondering if she might have been the Taylor Swift of the 1860s:
- She published a collection of poems called Love or Fame.
- She is said to have written popular songs and poems that "captured hearts and minds."
- One of her most famous songs, published in 1873, was "I Can Not Say the Sad Good-Bye."
What you can also discover is that Fannie Isabelle Sherrick's middle name is sometime spelled Isabel, that she was born in St. Louis, lived her early life in California and Colorado, was encouraged in her career by the popular poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox, and that Sherrick stopped writing for a while because of poor health.
Sherrick's book of poems, Love or Fame: And Other Poems.
Below, her rhyming lines about the month of October. To read them aloud is almost like reading a tongue twister. Enjoy!
October
By Fannie Isabelle Sherrick
I would not ask thee back, fair May,
With all your bright-eyed flowers;
Nor would I welcome April days
With all their laughing showers;
For each bright season of the year
Can claim its own sweet pleasures;
And we must take them as they come--
These gladly-given treasures.
There's music in the rain that falls
In bright October weather;
And we must learn to love them both--
The sun and rain together.
A mist is 'round the mountain-tops
Of gold-encircled splendor;
A dreamy spell is in the air
Of beauty sad and tender.
The winter hath not wooed her yet,
This fair October maiden;
And she is free to wander still
With fruits and flowers laden.
She shakes the dew-drops from her hair
In one swift, golden shower;
And all the woods are filled with light
That gilds each autumn flower.
But soon the frost-king's icy breath
Will chill her laughing beauty;
And she will waken in the dusk
Unto a sterner duty.
Ah! life is full of days like these,
Of days too bright to perish;
Yet death, like winter, claims too oft
The things we most would cherish.
