Poet: Robert Louis Stevenson
As from the house your mother sees
You playing round the garden trees,
So you may see, if you will look
Through the windows of this book.
Another child, far, far away,
And in another garden, play.
But do not think you can at all,
By knocking on the window, call
That child to hear you. He intent
Is all on his play-business bent.
He does not hear; he will not look,
Nor yet be lured out of this book.
For, long ago, the truth to say.
He has grown up and gone away,
And it is but a child of air
That lingers in the garden there.
More Garden Poems
Poet: Robert Louis Stevenson
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.
More Christian Poems
Poet: Robert Louis Stevenson
When children are playing alone on the green,
In comes the playmate that never was seen.
When children are happy and lonely and good,
The Friend of the Children comes out of the wood.
Nobody heard him and nobody saw.
His is a picture you never could draw,
But he 's sure to be present, abroad or at home.
When children are happy and playing alone.
He lies in the laurels, he runs on the grass.
He sings when you tinkle the musical glass;
Whene'er you are happy and cannot tell why.
The Friend of the Children is sure to be by!
He loves to be little, he hates to be big,
'Tis he that inhabits the caves that you dig;
'Tis he when you play with your soldiers of tin
That sides with the Frenchmen and never can win.
'Tis he, when at night you go off to your bed,
Bids you go to your sleep and not trouble your head;
For wherever they 're lying, in cupboard or shelf,
'Tis he will take care of your playthings himself!
More Friendship Poems
Poet: Robert Louis Stevenson
Love - what is love? A great and aching heart;
Wrung hands; and silence; and a long despair.
Life - what is life? Upon a moorland bare
To see love coming and see love depart.
More Short Love Poems
Poet: Robert Louis Stevenson
So live, so love, so use that fragile hour,
That when the dark hand of the shining power
Shall one from other, wife or husband, take,
The poor survivor may not weep and wake.
More Poems About Life
Poet: Robert Louis Stevenson
I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.
The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow -
Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;
For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber ball,
And he sometimes gets so little that there 's none of him at all.
He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play.
And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.
He stays so close beside me, he 's a coward you can see;
I 'd think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me!
One morning, very early, before the sun was up,
I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;
But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head.
Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.
More Funny Poems
Poet: Robert Louis Stevenson
In the other gardens
And all up the vale,
From the autumn bonfires
See the smoke trail!
Pleasant summer over
And all the summer flowers,
The red fire blazes,
The grey smoke towers.
Sing a song of seasons!
Something bright in all!
Flowers in the summer,
Fires in the fall!
More Poems About The Seasons
Poet: Robert Louis Stevenson
Whenever the moon and stars are set,
Whenever the wind is high,
All night long in the dark and wet,
A man goes riding by.
Late in the night when the fires are out.
Why does he gallop and gallop about?
Whenever the trees are crying aloud,
And ships are tossed at sea.
By, on the highway, low and loud,
By at the gallop goes he.
By at the gallop he goes, and then
By he comes back at the gallop again.
More Poems About The Wind
Poet: Robert Louis Stevenson
Great is the sun, and wide he goes
Through empty heaven without repose;
And in the blue and glowing days
More thick than rain he showery his rays.
Though closer still the blinds we pull
To keep the shady parlour cool,
Yet he will find a chink or two
To slip his golden fingers through.
The dusty attic spider-clad
He, through the keyhole, maketh glad;
And through the broken edge of tiles.
Into the laddered hay-loft smiles.
Meantime his golden face around
He bares to all the garden ground.
And sheds a warm and glittering look
Among the ivy's inmost nook.
Above the hills, along the blue,
Round the bright air with footing true,
To please the child, to paint the rose,
The gardener of the World, he goes.
More Sunshine Poems
Poet: Robert Louis Stevenson
You too, my mother, read my rhymes
For love of unforgotten times,
And you may chance to hear once more
The little feet along the floor.
More Poems About Mothers
Poet: Robert Louis Stevenson
All the names I know from nurse:
Gardener's garters, Shepherd's purse,
Bachelor's buttons, Lady's smock.
And the Lady Hollyhock.
Fairy places, fairy things.
Fairy woods where the wild bee wings,
Tiny trees for tiny dames -
These must all be fairy names!
Tiny woods below whose boughs
Shady fiedries weave a house;
Tiny tree-tops, rose or thyrme,
Where the braver fairies climb!
Fair are grown-up people's trees,
But the fairest woods are these;
Where if I were not so tall,
I should live for good and all.
More Flower Poem
Poet: Robert Louis Stevenson
From breakfast on through all the day
At home among my friends I stay;
But every night I go abroad
Afar into the land of Nod.
All by myself I have to go,
With none to tell me what to do -
All alone beside the streams
And up the mountain-sides of dreams.
The strangest things are there for me,
Both things to eat and things to see,
And many frightening sights abroad
Till morning in the land of Nod.
Try as I like to find the way,
I never can get back by day,
Nor can remember plain and clear
The curious music that I hear.
More Good Night Poems
