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A Child's Garden of Verses

by Robert Louis Stevenson
To Alison Cunningham

From Her Boy
For the long nights you lay awake

And watched for my unworthy sake:
For your most comfortable hand

That led me through the uneven land:
For all the story-books you read:

For all the pains you comforted:
For all you pitied, all you bore,

In sad and happy days of yore:--
My second Mother, my first Wife,

The angel of my infant life--
From the sick child, now well and old,

Take, nurse, the little book you hold!
And grant it, Heaven, that all who read

May find as dear a nurse at need,
And every child who lists my rhyme,

In the bright, fireside, nursery clime,
May hear it in as kind a voice

As made my childish days rejoice!
R. L. S.

Contents
To Alison Cunningham

I Bed in Summer
II A Thought

III At the Sea-side
IV Young Night-Thought

V Whole Duty of Children
VI Rain

VII Pirate Story
VIII Foreign Lands

IX Windy Nights
X Travel

XI Singing
XII Looking Forward

XIII A Good Play
XIV Where Go the Boats?

XV Auntie's Skirts
XVI The Land of Counterpane

XVII The Land of Nod
XVIII My Shadow

XIX System
XX A Good Boy

XXI Escape at Bedtime
XXII Marching Song

XXIII The Cow
XXIV The Happy Thought

XXV The Wind
XXVI Keepsake Mill

XXVII Good and Bad Children
XXVIII Foreign Children

XXIX The Sun Travels
XXX The Lamplighter

XXXI My Bed is a Boat
XXXII The Moon

XXXIII The Swing
XXXIV Time to Rise

XXXV Looking-glass River
XXXVI Fairy Bread

XXXVII From a Railway Carriage
XXXVIII Winter-time

XXXIX The Hayloft
XL Farewell to the Farm

XLI North-west Passage
1. Good-Night

2. Shadow March
3. In Port

The Child Alone
I The Unseen Playmate

II My Ship and I
III My Kingdom

IV Picture-books in Winter
V My Treasures

VI Block City
VII The Land of Story-books

VIII Armies in the Fire
IX The Little Land

Garden Days
I Night and Day

II Nest Eggs
III The Flowers

IV Summer Sun
V The Dumb Soldier

VI Autumn Fires
VII The Gardener

VIII Historical Associations
Envoys

I To Willie and Henrietta
II To My Mother

III To Auntie
IV To Minnie

V To My Name-Child
VI To Any Reader

A Child's Garden of Verses
I

Bed in Summer
In winter I get up at night

And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer quite the other way,

I have to go to bed by day.
I have to go to bed and see

The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people's feet

Still going past me in the street.
And does it not seem hard to you,

When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,

To have to go to bed by day?
II

A Thought
It is very nice to think

The world is full of meat and drink,
With little children saying grace

In every Christian kind of place.
III

At the Sea-side
When I was down beside the sea

A wooden spade they gave to me
To dig the sandy shore.

My holes were empty like a cup.
In every hole the sea came up,

Till it could come no more.
IV

Young Night-Thought
All night long and every night,

When my mama puts out the light,
I see the people marching by,

As plain as day before my eye.
Armies and emperor and kings,

All carrying different kinds of things,
And marching in so grand a way,

You never saw the like by day.
So fine a show was never seen

At the great circus on the green;
For every kind of beast and man

Is marching in that caravan.
As first they move a little slow,

But still the faster on they go,
And still beside me close I keep

Until we reach the town of Sleep.
V

Whole Duty of Children
A child should always say what's true

And speak when he is spoken to,
And behave mannerly at table;

At least as far as he is able.
VI

Rain
The rain is falling all around,

It falls on field and tree,
It rains on the umbrellas here,

And on the ships at sea.
VII

Pirate Story
Three of us afloat in the meadow by the swing,

Three of us abroad in the basket on the lea.
Winds are in the air, they are blowing in the spring,

And waves are on the meadow like the waves there are at sea.
Where shall we adventure, to-day that we're afloat,

Wary of the weather and steering by a star?
Shall it be to Africa, a-steering of the boat,

To Providence, or Babylon or off to Malabar?
Hi! but here's a squadron a-rowing on the sea--

Cattle on the meadow a-charging with a roar!
Quick, and we'll escape them, they're as mad as they can be,

The wicket is the harbour and the garden is the shore.
VIII

Foreign Lands
Up into the cherry tree

Who should climb but little me?
I held the trunk with both my hands

And looked abroad in foreign lands.
I saw the next door garden lie,

Adorned with flowers, before my eye,
And many pleasant places more

That I had never seen before.
I saw the dimpling river pass

And be the sky's blue looking-glass;
The dusty roads go up and down

With people tramping in to town.
If I could find a higher tree

Farther and farther I should see,
To where the grown-up river slips

Into the sea among the ships,
To where the road on either hand

Lead onward into fairy land,
Where all the children dine at five,

And all the playthings come alive.
IX

Windy Nights
Whenever the moon and stars are set,

Whenever the wind is high,
All night long in the dark and wet,

A man goes riding by.
Late in the night when the fires are out,

Why does he gallop and gallop about?
Whenever the trees are crying aloud,

And ships are tossed at sea,
By, on the highway, low and loud,



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