A Child's Garden of Versesby Robert Louis StevensonTo Alison Cunningham

Bed in Summer

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.

To Alison Cunningham

A Child's Garden of Versesby Robert Louis StevensonI. Bed in Summer

A Thought

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?

Bed in Summer

A Child's Garden of Versesby Robert Louis StevensonII. A Thought

At the Sea-Side

II

A THOUGHT

IT is very nice to think

The world is full of meat and drink,