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By Unknown. Read by Mike from Liverpool. The elephant is a bonnie bird It flits from bough to bough It builds its nest in the rhubarb tree And whistles like a cow

The Road Not Taken

By Robert Frost. Read by Cally from Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire. 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

If

By Rudyard Kipling. Read by Philip from Newport, Shropshire. If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or

You are old, Father William

By Lewis Carroll. Read by Janet from Oxfordshire. “You are old, Father William,” the young man said, “And your hair has become very white; And yet you incessantly stand on your head- Do you think, at your age, it is right?” “In my youth,” Father William replied to his son, “I feared it might injure

The Thrush’s Nest

By John Clare. read by Sue from Poole, Dorset. Within a thick and spreading hawthorn bush That overhung a molehill large and round, I heard from morn to morn a merry thrush Sing hymns to sunrise, and I drank the sound With joy; and often, an intruding guest, I watched her secret toil from day

Bumbarrel’s Nest

By John Clare. read by Jill from Hincaster, Cumbria. The oddling bush, close sheltered hedge new-plashed, Of which spring’s early liking makes a guest First with a shade of green though winter-dashed – There, full as soon, bumbarrels make a nest Of mosses grey with cobwebs closely tied And warm and rich as feather-bed within,

Sonnet 73

By William Shakespeare. Read by Geraint from London. That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou see’st the twilight of such day As after sunset

Sneezles

By AA Milne. Read by Yvette from Yorkshire Christopher Robin Had wheezles And sneezles, They bundled him Into His bed. They gave him what goes With a cold in the nose, And some more for a cold In the head. They wondered If wheezles Could turn Into measles, If sneezles Would turn Into mumps; They

Disobedience

By AA Milne. Read by Diana from Poole, Dorset James James Morrison Morrison Weatherby George Dupree Took great Care of his Mother, Though he was only three. James James Said to his Mother, “Mother,” he said, said he; “You must never go down to the end of the town, if you don’t go down with

Jim

By Hilaire Belloc. Read by Trines from Braunston, Northamptonshire. Who ran away from his Nurse and was eaten by a Lion There was a Boy whose name was Jim; His Friends were very good to him. They gave him Tea, and Cakes, and Jam, And slices of delicious Ham, And Chocolate with pink inside And