To “A Child’s Garden of Verses,” first published in 1885 and regarded as one of the most influential children’s books of the 19th century, Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) brought similar magic. In most of his poems, he wrote from the point of view of a child and addressed his young readers as equals. Like Mr. Rogers, he is tender, whimsical, engaging, and wise.
We may remember him primarily as a writer of such novels as “Treasure Island,” “Kidnapped,” and “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” but his children’s poetry has also endured and has found a home in children’s anthologies and, of course, in “A Child’s Garden of Verses,” which remains in print today.
The Birth of a Dreamer
As an infant and into his adolescence, Stevenson required the care of a full-time nanny. He was sickly, plagued by a terrible cough, often weak, and suffered from horrible nightmares. His lung impairment, which lasted throughout his lifetime, forced him to spend much of his boyhood in bed. During that time, he developed his powers of the imagination, turning his bed covers into battlefields and castles, as shown in his poem “The Land of Counterpane” (a word meaning bedspread or quilt), and imagining exotic historical figures—kings, queens, and a troupe of others—parading through his room or down the street outside.
“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!”
The Joys of Childhood
Despite the physical miseries of his younger years, Stevenson celebrated happiness, nature, and mystery in his poems for children, keen to make them aware of the magic of being alive. In “Rain,” for example, he sought to expand their imaginations, reminding them of the world beyond their own backyard:“The rain is raining all around, It falls on field and tree, It rains on the umbrellas here, And on the ships at sea.”
“Escape at Bedtime” directs our eyes to the stars. Here’s the first verse:“The lights from the parlour and kitchen shone out Through the blinds and the windows and bars; And high overhead and all moving about, There were thousands of millions of stars. There ne'er were such thousands of leaves on a tree, Nor of people in church or the Park, As the crowds of the stars that looked down upon me, And that glittered and winked in the dark.”
And most readers, I suspect, have read or know by heart Stevenson’s “Happy Thought”:“The world is so full of a number of things, I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.”
Through the Eyes of a Child
With a few exceptions, Stevenson wrote his poetry in first person, a child speaking for children. “Foreign Lands” gives us a child climbing a tree, looking first into a neighbor’s garden and then at a “dimpling river,” and at last speculating on what might be seen from a much higher tree:“To where the roads on either hand Lead onward into fairy land, Where all the children dine at five, And all the playthings come alive.”
Here, the poet remembers that childhood dream which entertained the notion that our dolls and toy soldiers might somehow breathe with life.“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?”
Innocence and Experience
Most parents want their young ones to remain free from the experiences of adulthood—everything from politics to sexuality—until they are mature enough to handle such topics. Instead, we want them to exercise their imaginations, to build forts, dash about the yard pretending to be pirates, or dress up in a gown and tiara and so to become a princess.“These are the hills, these are the woods, These are my starry solitudes; And there the river by whose brink The roaring lions come to drink.”
The poem ends with this verse:“So, when my nurse comes in for me, Home I return across the sea, And go to bed with backward looks At my dear land of story-books.”
Wonder
To most small children, the entire world is a place of wonderment and the miraculous. Their senses and perceptions are fresh, still being unpackaged with each passing day, so that even the smallest act—finding a penny in a parking lot, eating a slice of watermelon on a hot August afternoon, exploring the woods at the edge of the yard, listening to Mom read “Three Billy Goats Gruff”—is freighted with a significance that escapes adults.“Yet as I saw it, I see it again, The kirk and palace, the ships and the men, And as long as I live and where’er I may be, I’ll always remember my town by the sea.”
May we all do the same.Endnote: Many different editions of “A Child’s Garden of Verses” are available in libraries, bookstores, and online stores. For readers wishing to purchase the book, I urge you to compare these volumes, keeping in mind that the illustrations add immensely to the reading pleasure of these poems for both young and old.
