Beyond nursery rhymes, I think it would be Mending Wall by Robert Frost. Third Grade.
I still remember most of it

Aside from nursery rhymes, it was “Bear In There” by Shel Silverstein:

There’s a Polar Bear
In our Frigidaire—
He likes it ‘cause it’s cold in there.
With his seat in the meat
And his face in the fish
And his big hairy paws
In the buttery dish,
He’s nibbling the noodles,
He’s munching the rice,
He’s slurping the soda,
He’s licking the ice.
And he lets out a roar
If you open the door.
And it gives me a scare
To know he’s in there—
That Polary Bear
In our Fridgitydaire.

Paul Revere’s Ride by Longfellow. still remember the first stanza

I’ve never seen a purple cow,
I never hope to see one,
But I can tell you anyhow,
I’d rather see than be one.

I still remember it ;0)

It was written by Gelett Burgess in 1895.

That I didn’t remember, so I looked it up :0P

I am sure this isn’t what you had in mind, but we were naughty kids:

Milk, Milk
Lemonade
Around the corner
Fudge is Made

It still cracks me up. I am such a child.

A Shel Silverstein poem about a kid peeing on a plant….

besides Nursery Rhime it would be Libby Lilly something I wrote my self so please dont mind it
“Libby LIlly”

Libby Lilly
is so silly
she puts her blankie
on her head
and says Lookie
Mommy
Im silly.

Beans, beans, they’re good for your heart.
The more you eat, the more you fart.

JellyFish Stew… it was in the Where the Sidewalk Ends book. :)

mo memorized the dictionary
but he can’t find a job
or anyone who wants to marry
someone who memorized the dictionary.

shel silverstein as well (he’s popular)

Whenever you see a hearse go by,
That’s a sign you’re gonna die.
They wrap you in a bloody sheet
And throw you in six feet deep.
The worms crawl in.
The worms crawl out.
Into your stomach and out of your mouth.

oy..

After a burp-
Excuse me please, I wasn’t rude
it wasn’t me, it was my food.
It got so lonely down below
it just came up to say hello.

“Yesterday upon the stair
I met a man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
How I wish he’d go away”.

@ marina – good gosh!? Im old and that will give me nightmares tonight. hehe.

mic-
see you real soon

key
y? because we like you

mouse

micky mouse, micky mouse, forever let us hold our banners high,

hey there high there ho there Your as welcome as can be

Mic Key Mouse.

The first one I remember making an effort to memorize was Poe’s The Raven, which I’ve known by heart since I was seven or eight years old. But there were definitely others that I knew before that. Like the one Marina posted, which I knew in a slightly different form. I was a really morbid little kid… Not much has changed in that respect.

Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halve cours yronne
And smale fowles maken melodye
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
(So priketh hem nature in hir corages)
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
– Geoffrey Chaucer

(And yes, I still have it memorized and can pronounce every word of Old English correctly.)

@Bri_L Sorry, didn’t mean to induce fear. I thought all kids said some version of that. It was rendered with as much childish ghoulish relish as possible.

Actually, my first was one my mother used to recite to us when we were in bed and she was tucking us in.

Little fly on the wall
Ain’t you got no clothes a’tall?
Ain’t you got no shimmy shirt?
Ain’t you got not pettiskirt?
L’il fly, ain’t you cold?

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought

And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! and through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

@ marina I like that one it is very cute

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear.
Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair.
Fuzzy Wuzzn’t wasn’t fuzzy.
Was he?

Excellent Question btw.

@ ideabrian – Excellent! I forgot about that one!

Well, I’m a little older than many of you, but this is one of the first poems I remember memorizing:

Little Boy Blue, by Eugene Field

THE little toy dog is covered with dust,
But sturdy and staunch he stands;
The little toy soldier is red with rust,
And his musket moulds in his hands.
Time was when the little toy dog was new, 5
And the soldier was passing fair;
And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue
Kissed them and put them there.

“Now don’t you go till I come,” he said,
“And don’t you make any noise!”
So, toddling off to his trundle bed,
He dreamt of the pretty toys;
And, as he was dreaming, an angel song
Awakened our Little Boy Blue—
Oh! the years are many, the years are long,
But the little toy friends are true!

Ay, faithful to Little Boy Blue they stand,
Each in the same old place,
Awaiting the touch of a little hand,
The smile of a little face;
And they wonder, as waiting the long years through
In the dust of that little chair,
What has become of our Little Boy Blue,
Since he kissed them and put them there.

Wow. I don’t remember memorizing any poetry before grade six. In Flanders Fields. It’s so solemn in comparison to some of the ones listed above.

Little Orphan’ Annie. I memorized it for halloween in Grade school. By James Whitcomb Riley
Little Orphant Annie’s come to our house to stay,
An’ wash the cups an’ saucers up, an’ brush the crumbs away,
An’ shoo the chickens off the porch, an’ dust the hearth, an’ sweep,
An’ make the fire, an’ bake the bread, an’ earn her board-an’-keep;
An’ all us other childern, when the supper things is done,
We set around the kitchen fire an’ has the mostest fun
A-list’nin’ to the witch-tales ‘at Annie tells about,
An’ the Gobble-uns ‘at gits you
Ef you
Don’t
Watch
Out!

Onc’t they was a little boy wouldn’t say his prayers,—
So when he went to bed at night, away up stairs,
His Mammy heerd him holler, an’ his Daddy heerd him bawl,
An’ when they turn’t the kivvers down, he wasn’t there at all!
An’ they seeked him in the rafter-room, an’ cubby-hole, an’ press,
An’ seeked him up the chimbly-flue, an’ ever’wheres, I guess;
But all they ever found was thist his pants an’ roundabout—
An’ the Gobble-uns’ll git you
Ef you
Don’t
Watch
Out!

An’ one time a little girl ‘ud allus laugh an’ grin,
An’ make fun of ever’one, an’ all her blood an’ kin;
An’ onc’t, when they was “company,” an’ ole folks was there,
She mocked ‘em an’ shocked ‘em, an’ said she didn’t care!
An’ thist as she kicked her heels, an’ turn’t to run an’ hide,
They was two great big Black Things a-standin’ by her side,
An’ they snatched her through the ceilin’ ‘fore she knowed what she’s about!
An’ the Gobble-uns’ll git you
Ef you
Don’t
Watch
Out!

An’ little Orphant Annie says when the blaze is blue,
An’ the lamp-wick sputters, an’ the wind goes woo-oo!
An’ you hear the crickets quit, an’ the moon is gray,
An’ the lightnin’-bugs in dew is all squenched away,—
You better mind yer parents, an’ yer teachers fond an’ dear,
An’ churish them ‘at loves you, an’ dry the orphant’s tear,
An’ he’p the pore an’ needy ones ‘at clusters all about,
Er the Gobble-uns’ll git you
Ef you
Don’t
Watch
Out!

The Raven, when I was six.
And, Ickle me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me Too by Shel Silverstein
&
The Unicorn.
I still don’t care that people think Poe is childish. I love his work.

Robert Frost’s ‘Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening’

And miles to go before I sleep…

Window Dogs
Little paws against the glass
Wimpering at kids that pass
Living in a window pane
Never kissed by sun or rain
If fortune ever fills my cup
I’ll buy up every window pup
And give them out instead of toys
To lonesome little boys and girls.

@poem- Adorable!

Is it bad that when I heard the line “living in a windowpane”, I thought of a puppy living a horrible two-dimensional life squished into the middle of a pane of glass?

@Hobbes: You and me both, man.

Fuzzy Wuzzy wuz my first memorized poem, too. When I was a teen, it was “There was a young man from Nantucket…” It has only gone down hill from there. :-)

Fuzzy Wuzzy Was A Bear
Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair.
If Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair,
He wasn’t fuzzy was he?
Was he bare?

That’s how I learned it as a kid, the internet is telling me different things though. :’(

I learned it as

“Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear
Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair
So Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn’t all that fuzzy
Was he?”

Both are fine by me! :)

Other than the basic nursery rhymes the first one I actually put an effort into memorizing was Shel Silverstein’s The Unicorn

A long time ago, when the earth was green
and there was more kinds of animals than you’ve ever seen,
and they run around free while the world was bein’ born,
and the loveliest of all was the Unicorn.

There was green alligators and long-neck geese.
There was humpy bumpy camels and chimpanzees.
There was catsandratsandelephants, but sure as you’re born
the loveliest of all was the Unicorn.

But the Lord seen some sinnin’, and it caused him pain.
He says, “Stand back, I’m gonna make it rain.”
He says, “Hey Brother Noah, I’ll tell ya whatcha do.
Go and build me a floatin’ zoo.

And you take two alligators and a couple of geese,
two humpy bumpy camels and two chimpanzees.
Take two catsandratsandelephants, but sure as you’re born,
Noah, don’t you forget my Unicorn.”

Now Noah was there, he answered the callin’
and he finished up the ark just as the rain was fallin’.
He marched in the animals two by two,
and he called out as they went through,

“Hey Lord, I got your two alligators and your couple of geese,
your humpy bumpy camels and your chimpanzees.
Got your catsandratsandelephants – but Lord, I’m so forlorn
‘cause I just don’t see no Unicorn.”

Ol’ Noah looked out through the drivin’ rain
but the Unicorns were hidin’, playin’ silly games.
They were kickin’ and splashin’ in the misty morn,
oh them silly Unicorn.

The the goat started goatin’, and the snake started snakin’,
the elephant started elephantin’, and the boat started shaking’.
The mouse started squeakin’, and the lion started roarin’,
and everyone’s aboard but the Unicorn.

I mean the green alligators and the long-neck geese,
the humpy bumpy camels and the chimpanzees.
Noah cried, “Close the door ‘cause the rain is pourin’ -
and we just can’t wait for them Unicorn.”

Then the ark started movin’, and it drifted with the tide,
and the Unicorns looked up from the rock and cried.
And the water come up and sort of floated them away -
that’s why you’ve never seen a Unicorn to this day.

You’ll see a lot of alligators and a whole mess of geese.
You’ll see humpy bumpy camels and lots of chimpanzees.
You’ll see catsandratsandelephants, but sure as you’re born
you’re never gonna see no Unicorn.

This is also a song done by the Irish Rovers, but I learned the poem before I heard the song.

Oh, that made my insides happy, hitomi. :)

@asmonet Glad I could be of service….it is one of my favorite poems even though it’s silly and kinda sad…and I LOVE the song…it just makes me smile (despite the sad).

If simple nursery rhymes count, then “Mary Had a Little Lamb” or possibly “Fuzzy Wuzzy” would be the earliest.

Later, when I was about 10, I learned this little gem out of a joke book:

If chlorophyll cures every ill,
Then it is my expectation,
That it would pay,
To run someday,
A chlorophylling station.

The first serious poetry I made an effort to memorize would have been either John Masefield’s “A Ballad of John Silver”, or Phyllis McGinley’s “The Conquerors”. I still love them both—I have “the Conquerors” posted on the wall at work. Here it is:

It seems vainglorious and proud
Of Atom-man to boast aloud
His prowess homicidal
When one remembers how for years,
With their rude stones and humble spears,
Our sires, at wiping out their peers,
Were almost never idle.
Despite his under-fissioned art
The Hittite made a splendid start
Toward smiting lesser nations;
While Tamerlane, it’s widely known,
Without a bomb to call his own
Destroyed whole populations.
Nor did the ancient Persian need
Uranium to kill his Mede,
The Viking earl, his foeman.
The Greeks got excellent results
With swords and engined catapults.
A chariot served the Roman.
Mere cannon garnered quite a yield
On Waterloo’s tempestuous field.
At Hastings and at Flodden
Stout countrymen, with just a bow
And arrow, laid their thousands low.
And Gettysburg was sodden.
Though doubtless now our shrewd machines
Can blow the world to smithereens
More tidily and so on,
Let’s give our ancestors their due.
Their ways were coarse, their weapons few.
But ah! how wondrously they slew
With what they had to go on.

Outwitted by Edwin Markham
He drew a circle that shut me out —
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in!

my Grandfather introduced me to it and it has remained with me as my favorite poem

My own. It was published in the local paper when I was in first grade.

I am a flower, a sunflower,
the sun shines on me,
the rain falls on me,
and makes me grow.

The jumblies in second grade

—When I was One,
I had just begun.
When I was Two,
I was nearly new.
When I was Three
I was hardly me.
When I was Four,
I was not much more.
When I was Five, I was just alive.
But now I am Six, I’m as clever as clever,
So I think I’ll be six now for ever and ever.
The End

I found a little beetle, so that beetle was his name,
And I called him Alexander and he answered just the same.
I put him in a matchbox, and I kept him all the day…
And Nanny let my beetle out
Yes, Nanny let my beetle out
She went and let my beetle out-
And beetle ran away.

She said she didn’t mean it, and I never said she did,
She said she wanted matches, and she just took off the lid
She said that she was sorry, but it’s difficult to catch
An excited sort of beetle you’ve mistaken for a match.

She said that she was sorry, and I really mustn’t mind
As there’s lots and lots of beetles which she’s certain we could find
If we looked about the garden for the holes where beetles hid-
And we’d get another matchbox, and write BEETLE on the lid.

We went to all the places which a beetle might be near,
And we made the sort of noises which a beetle likes to hear,
And I saw a kind of something, and I gave a sort of shout:
“A beetle-house and Alexander Beetle coming out!”

It was Alexander Beetle I’m as certain as can be
And he had a sort of look as if he thought it might be ME,
And he had a kind of look as if he thought he ought to say:
“I’m very, very sorry that I tried to run away.”

And Nanny’s very sorry too, for you know what she did,
And she’s writing ALEXANDER very blackly on the lid,
So Nan and me are friends, because it’s difficult to catch
An excited Alexander you’ve mistaken for a match.—

“Batter my heart, three-person’d God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp’d town to another due,
Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv’d, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov’d fain,
But am betroth’d unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me”
John Donne

The road not taken. I think I had to memorize it for like.. third grade English or something strange like that. I just remember reciting it over and over in my driveway.

A Poem I wrote that was published in the local paper. I was in 1st grade.

There once was a girl with a very little curl
right in the middle of her forehead
and when she was good
she was very very good
and when she was bad
she was horrid!!

roses are red
violets are blue
I forget the rest

Come, Little Leaves – my mom used to sing it to me, but it’s actually a poem
by George Cooper

“Come, little leaves,” said the wind one day.
“Come over the meadows with me and play;
Put on your dresses of red and gold,
For summer is gone and the days grow cold

Soon as the leaves heard the wind’s loud call,
Down they came fluttering, one and all;
Over the brown fields they danced and flew,
Singing the sweet little song they knew.

“Cricket, good-bye, we’ve been friends so long,
Little brook, sing us your farewell song;
Say you’re sorry to see us go;
Ah! you will miss us, right well we know.

“Dear little lambs, in your fleecy fold,
Mother will keep you from harm and cold;
Fondly we’ve watched you in vale and glade,
Say, will you dream of our loving shade?”

Dancing and whirling the little leaves went,
Winter had called them, and they were content,
Soon fast asleep in their earthy beds,
The snow laid a soft mantle over their heads.

hot cross buns
hot cross buns
one-a-penny
two-a-penny
hot cross buns

Aside from nursery rhymes, of which there were many, it was this, taught to me by my uncle when I was three:

They walked down the lane together.
The sky was covered with stars.
They reached the gate in silence.
He lifted for her the bars.

She neither smiled nor thanked him,
For that she knew not how;
For he was only a farmer’s boy,
And she was a Jersey cow.

We had to memorize this and write it all out with every punctuation mark in place. No wonder I’m so damned intelligent~

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend, “If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,—
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm.”

Then he said “Good-night!” and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend through alley and street
Wanders and watches, with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,—
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town
And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, “All is well!”
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,—
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse’s side,
Now he gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns.

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.

It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer’s dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.

It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, black and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.

It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadow brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket ball.

You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled,—-
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
>From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,—-
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

@Facade
I was just about to say “midnight ride of paul revere!” It’s so ironic that you had to memorize that poem too. Is it even worth it to memorize all of that? It really kills the life out of the poem; too bad you had to do that :( I only had to memorize a couple lines because we memorized it as a class haha On my own, maybe twinkle twinkle little star? I’m not really sure…

@dxs Yea, we did a lot of unnecessary things at that school.

Hey after the Paul Revere this is embarrassing but…

Once there was an elephant that got tangled in a telephant

No, no I mean an elephone that got tangled in a telephone

Dear me I’m not certain quite that even now I’ve got it right.

How ‘ere it was he got his trunk entangled in the telephunk

The more he tried to set it free the louder rang the telephee

And that is the tale of elephlop and telephong.

I think I was 7…...... & that was a very long time ago

Wow, good job remembering, @tacres. I think this is it.

Nature’s first green is gold
Its hardest hue to hold
it’s early leafs a flower
but only so an hour
So leaf subsides to leaf
so eden sank to grief
as dawn goes down to day
nothing gold can stay – Robert Frost
P.S. I hope all remembered it correctly.

Thanks for the link @Jeruba . I’m amazed that I was as close as I was to the correct lines!

The Witch

There once was a witch of Willoughby Wood,
And a weird wild witch was she;
With her hair that was snarled,
And hands that were gnarled,
And a rickety, kickety knee.
She could jump they say
To the moon and back,
But this I never did see.