A Childs Garden of Verses

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
0. Good-Night
. Shadow March
. 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?
I I
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.
I V