treasure found

one night last week, while in the 'burbs to help out my dad while my mom was in haifa, sleep and i started fighting...

ME: but it's time for me to sleep! i want to sleepppp!
SLEEP: i don't care, i don't want to help you right now.
ME: gosh.

so i got up and looked around for a book to read. at first i went on a mad hunt for the first harry potter, with the next book coming out soon (thank goodness) i thought it a wise choice. i didn't find it. what i did find however, was this really old, pretty looking book (i judge books by their covers). intrigued i opened it up to find the picture to the left. the book was apart of my grandpa lehman's collection. i figured that if he put that stamp within this book, he must have liked it or at the very least read it. and due to the fact that his alzheimer's had hit full-swing by the time i came around, this book (or at least how i like to look at it) is a way for me to get to know my grandpa. i became even more excited when i flipped through the book to find that he had marked some of the short stories and poems, which in my mind means that these are the passages that stood out and spoke to him, or just made him think a little deeper upon a subject. the following poem he has marked at the beginning and at the end, which to me reads he liked it aLOT. and after reading it i felt like i'm getting a chance to know who he was:

THE NEEDLE

The gay belles of fashion may boast of excelling

In walzt or cotillon , at whist or quadrill;
And see admiration by vauntingly telling
Of drawing, and painting, and musical skill:
But give me the fair one, in country or city,
Whose home and its duties are dear to her heart,
Who cheerfully warbles some rustical ditty,
While plying the needle with exquisite art:
The bright little needle, the swift-flying needle,
The needle directed by beauty and art.

If Love have a potent, a magical token,
A talisman, ever resistless and true,
A charm that is never evaded or broken,
A witchery certain the heart to subdue,
'T is this; and his armory never has furnished
So keen and unerring, or polished a dart;
Let beauty direct it, so polished and burnished,
And oh! it is certain of touching the heart:
The bright little needle, the swift-flying needle,
The needle directed by beauty and art.

Be wise, then, ye maidens, nor seek admiration,
By dressing for conquest, and flirting with all;
You never, whatev'e be your fortune or station,
Appear half so lovely at rout or at ball,
As gayly convened at the work-covered table,
Each cheerfully active, playing her part,
Beguiling the task with a song or a fable,
And plying the needle with exquisite art:
The bright little needle, then swift-flying needle.
The needle directed by beauty and art.

-Samuel Woodworth

p.s. my grandma was a quilter