A Child's Garden of Verses
A Bonus Book for Children
by Robert Louis Stevenson

Bed in Summer

In winter I get up at night

And dress by yellow candlelight.

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?

 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.

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.

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.