Poem for Spring

Homemade raspberry lemonade popsicles ...

...and strawberry blossoms

There are so many things I treasure about Spring and Summer. But one thing, is always hard...

We found the poem Bed in Summer in our new book A Child's Garden of Verses, composed by Robert Louis Stevenson, and enchantingly illustrated by Tasha Tudor. I have decided this is a must have for every mother's library.

The girls fell in love with this poem the moment they read it. Proof, it was memorized in just a couple days, and is quoted randomly throughout the day and especially at bedtime.

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,

And 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?

What child in the world can't relate to these charming verses? This poem gave us a wonderful opportunity to talk about what makes something good literature. We discussed the timeless, universal nature of this poem, and the how the precise, figurative language gives the poem life and interest (ie. dress by "yellow candle-light," instead of "in the dark").