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,