August’s poem
Robert Louis Stevenson, “Bed in Summer,” from A Child’s Garden of Verses.
A few remarks.
(1) No wonder it was hard for little R.L.S. to go to bed in summertime. The Scottish sun doesn’t set until who knows when.
(2) Many children’s stories end with the characters peacefully and easily going to sleep; this poem knows better.
A few other classics with a good measure of “sleep ambivalence”:
Charlotte’s Web
Goodnight Moon
Madeline
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
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?
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
A few remarks.
(1) No wonder it was hard for little R.L.S. to go to bed in summertime. The Scottish sun doesn’t set until who knows when.
(2) Many children’s stories end with the characters peacefully and easily going to sleep; this poem knows better.
A few other classics with a good measure of “sleep ambivalence”:
Charlotte’s Web
Goodnight Moon
Madeline