English Day Circular 2024

Sick - by Shel Silverstein
"I cannot go to school today,"

Said little Peggy Ann McKay,
"I have the measles and the mumps,
A gash, a rash, and purple bumps.
My mouth is wet, my throat is dry,

I'm going blind in my right eye.
My tonsils are as big as rocks,
I've counted sixteen chicken pox
And there's one more--that's seventeen,

And don't you think my face looks green?
My leg is cut - my eyes are blue -
It might be instamatic flu.
I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke,

I'm sure that my left leg is broke -
My hip hurts when I move my chin,
My belly button's caving in,
My back is wrenched, my ankle's sprained,

My 'pendix pains each time it rains.
My nose is cold, my toes are numb,
I have a sliver in my thumb.
My neck is stiff, my voice is weak,

I hardly whisper when I speak.
My tongue is filling up my mouth,
I think my hair is falling out.
My elbow's bent, my spine ain't straight,

My temperature is one-o-eight.
My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear,
There is a hole inside my ear.
I have a hangnail, and my heart is - what?

What's that? What's that you say?
You say today is - Saturday?
G‘bye, I‘m going out to play!‖
23
PRESCRIBED TEXT FOR ORATORY (PREPARED ) - GRADE 10
AN EXTRACT FROM THE AUTHENTIC TEXT OF CHIEF SEATTLE'S TREATY
ORATION 1854
Day and night cannot dwell together. The Red Man has ever fled the approach of the White Man,
as the morning mist flees before the morning sun. However, your proposition seems fair and I
think that my people will accept it and will retire to the reservation you offer them. Then we will
dwell apart in peace, for the words of the Great White Chief seem to be the words of nature
speaking to my people out of dense darkness.
It matters little where we pass the remnant of our days. They will not be many. The Indian's
night promises to be dark. Not a single star of hope hovers above his horizon. Sad-voiced winds
moan in the distance. Grim fate seems to be on the Red Man's trail, and wherever he will hear the
approaching footsteps of his fell destroyer and prepare stolidly to meet his doom, as does the
wounded doe that hears the approaching footsteps of the hunter.
A few more moons, a few more winters, and not one of the descendants of the mighty hosts that
once moved over this broad land or lived in happy homes, protected by the Great Spirit, will
remain to mourn over the graves of a people once more powerful and hopeful than yours. But
why should I mourn at the untimely fate of my people? Tribe follows tribe, and nation follows
nation, like the waves of the sea. It is the order of nature, and regret is useless. Your time of
decay may be distant, but it will surely come, for even the White Man whose God walked and
talked with him as friend to friend, cannot be exempt from the common destiny. We may be
brothers after all. We will see.
We will ponder your proposition and when we decide we will let you know. But should we
accept it, I here and now make this condition that we will not be denied the privilege without
molestation of visiting at any time the tombs of our ancestors, friends, and children. Every part
of this soil is sacred in the estimation of my people. Every hillside, every valley, every plain and
grove, has been hallowed by some sad or happy event in days long vanished. Even the rocks,
which seem to be dumb and dead as the swelter in the sun along the silent shore, thrill with
memories of stirring events connected with the lives of my people, and the very dust upon which
you now stand responds more lovingly to their footsteps than yours, because it is rich with the
blood of our ancestors, and our bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch. Our departed
braves, fond mothers, glad, happy hearted maidens, and even the little children who lived here
and rejoiced here for a brief season, will love these somber solitudes and at eventide they greet
shadowy returning spirits. And when the last Red Man shall have perished, and the memory of
my tribe shall have become a myth among the White Men, these shores will swarm with the
invisible dead of my tribe, and when your children's children think themselves alone in the field,
the store, the shop, upon the highway, or in the silence of the pathless woods, they will not be
alone. In all the earth there is no place dedicated to solitude. At night when the streets of your
cities and villages are silent and you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning
hosts that once filled them and still love this beautiful land. The White Man will never be alone.
Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not powerless. Dead, did I say?
There is no death, only a change of worlds.
26

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Sick - by Shel Silverstein

"I cannot go to school today,"

My mouth is wet, my throat is dry,

And there's one more--that's seventeen,

I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke,

My back is wrenched, my ankle's sprained,

My neck is stiff, my voice is weak,

My elbow's bent, my spine ain't straight,

I have a hangnail, and my heart is - what?

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