Stevenson’s Summer Poem

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?

My Robert Louis Stevenson poetry book titled A Child’s Garden of Verses (published in 1885) was one of my favorites growing up. Most of us remember having to go to bed when it seemed the grown-ups were still awake having fun. Here there’s light still at 9:00 in the evening which extends our day as we sit outside watching the deer stroll by.

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