Aravis' Blog

Just a tiny post to tell you all about the beautiful poem I recorded last weekend for the fortnightly poetry collection at LibriVox. The poem is called “The Little Mud-Sparrows” by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. (taken from CHRISTMAS IN LEGEND AND STORY; A Book for Boys and Girls, complied by Elva S. Smith, Carnegie Library Pittsburgh and Alice I. Hazeltine)

Here is the poem and my version of it:

A Jewish Legend

I like that old, kind legend
Not found in Holy Writ,
And wish that John or Matthew
Had made Bible out of it.

But though it is not Gospel,
There is no law to hold
The heart from growing better
That hears the story told:—

How the little Jewish children
Upon a summer day,
Went down across the meadows
With the Child Christ to play.

And in the gold-green valley,
Where low the reed-grass lay,
They made them mock mud-sparrows
Out of the meadow clay.

So, when these all were fashioned,
And ranged in rows about,
“Now,” said the little Jesus,
“We’ll let the birds fly out.”

Then all the happy children
Did call, and coax, and cry—
Each to his own mud-sparrow:
“Fly, as I bid you! Fly!”

But earthen were the sparrows,
And earth they did remain,
Though loud the Jewish children
Cried out, and cried again.

Except the one bird only
The little Lord Christ made;
The earth that owned Him Master,
—His earth heard and obeyed.

Softly He leaned and whispered:
“Fly up to Heaven! Fly!”
And swift, His little sparrow
Went soaring to the sky,

And silent, all the children
Stood, awestruck, looking on,
Till, deep into the heavens,
The bird of earth had gone.

I like to think, for playmate
We have the Lord Christ still,
And that still above our weakness
He works His mighty will,

That all our little playthings
Of earthen hopes and joys
Shall be, by His commandment,
Changed into heavenly toys.

Our souls are like the sparrows
Imprisoned in the clay,
Bless Him who came to give them wings
Upon a Christmas Day!

Isn’t it simply beautiful? If you feel like recording is, the project is still open and can be found here: https://forum.librivox.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=37121

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Proudly presenting my finished LibriVox solo recording of German short stories for kids: http://librivox.org/erzaehlungen-fuer-kinder-von-various/ 😀

Here is the official summary:

Neben berühmten Erzählungen wie “Max und Moritz – Eine Bubengeschichte in sieben Streichen” von Wilhelm Busch und zwei der weniger bekannten Texten von Heinrich Hoffmann (Autor von Struwwelpeter) enthält diese Sammlung insgesamt 20 kurze Erzählungen, Gedichte und Märchen für Kinder. (Zusammenfassung von Elli)

It’s a collection of 20 short stories for children… some well known and some probably long forgotten. A few of the texts were very hard to read, as the quality of the scans often was rather bad and the old writing made it doubly hard… still I had a lot of fun recording those old stories and there are some real treasures among them. I think the one I liked best was “Etwas von den Wurzelkindern” by Sibylle but also the two by Heinrich Hoffmann were really good. Anyway most of the texts have beautiful pictures, so you might want to read along. 😀

Here is my recording of Max und Moritz:

Hope you’ll have as much fun listening as I had recording them. 😀

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