Song

Christina Rossetti

Teacher card

Published: 1866, in Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems
Length: 8 lines, 52 words, 1 word in 52 is long
Year band: Reading load: Years 3–4. A guide from word length, not a curriculum level.
Themes: birthday, love, wedding
Time: 5–10 min, depending on the activity

The text

Oh roses for the flush of youth,And laurel for the perfect prime;But pluck an ivy branch for meGrown old before my time.

Oh violets for the grave of youth,And bay for those dead in their prime;Give me the withered leaves I choseBefore in the old time.

Christina Rossetti (died 1894), Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems (1866), lines 1461–1469 of Project Gutenberg ebook #16950. Public domain in Australia: the author died before 1955. Copied word for word and checked against the ebook.

What to do with it

One link and one task line for each activity. Send a student the one you want them to do, or print this page and hand it round; each link has a QR code.

Its lines are dealt for names in posy cardsin posy · 16 lines · about 5–10 min
Task for students (you can change the sentence before you print; nothing is saved)See how posy takes lines from this poem, then make a card for someone using them.
See how posy takes lines from this poem, then make a card for someone using them.
posy.popplepoetry.com/sources#ro-roses

Send the whole hand-out

This page’s link. Students open it, read the text and pick what to do; nothing asks them to sign in.

Link for the whole text

https://popplepoetry.com/find/rossetti-song · popplepoetry.com