[Bookworm_Girl]

I really enjoyed these poems. I think my favorites were the landscape ones. I was able to borrow the book Careless Rambles which focused on this theme and had an accompaniment of beautiful illustrations. What a great power of observation that he had! Even insects and ants are glorified in their roles within nature. I felt like I was within a beautiful painting of England. There was one poem I remember about the sounds of church bells drifting across the land on a Sunday, and I could just imagine being there out in the open air spending a lazy morning and wanting to drift asleep to the bells.

My method of reading was to read by themes as suggested by sunsurfer from the Everyman's edition. Then I sampled chronologically through the Delphi collection. I also looked at a complete listing of poems and then randomly picked out interesting titles. The complete list highlighted how he would write about the same subject but from a variety of angles. In one poem a rainshower might be a happy event to laugh and play in. In another poem it might be the thundering voice of God to seek shelter from. A winter poem might make you feel the chill and picture the leafless trees with icy branches or it might make you feel the warmth inside by the fireplace with a good book.

I also found some Librivox recordings that were pleasant to listen to while strolling through my local park. No blizzards here in the desert.

I also read some of his prose pieces in the Delphi collection. From these you got a feel for his rambling thoughts and then could see how he applied those to his poems. The ones about ants and dewdrops particularly stood out to me.

Like others I much preferred the shorter versions to the longer ones which were hard to hold my interest. Could be me - I'm not sure I have the right concentration skills for understanding longer poetry!