Today’s text was written as a children’s poem by Robert Louis Stevenson. What it notices about the enticing longer days and late sunsets of summer is not limited to children however. I suspect many adults too find it harder to wind down when it’s still light and pleasant out.

They say I’m supposed to go to bed, but there’s birds out there, and where’s my phone or my Nintendo?

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Stevenson published this in 1885 when some things of the earlier 19^th century were wearing out. The voice of the child in the poem says they were used to arising from bed by candlelight in winter, and now they are going to bed in the still-daylight of a summer evening. How common was candlelight in a child’s room when this poem was first in print? Gas lighting had given its name to that age, and electric light was soon to become common. The adult Stevenson likely knew of such things, as I read his family business was lighthouse engineering. Perhaps Stevenson was recalling his own childhood, when humble candlelight was the norm? The collection that included this poem, A Childs Garden of Verses,  was still in circulation in my mid-20^th century childhood. I guess we young readers just translated the lighting technology, figuring that poems were from olden days when open flames in kids’ rooms weren’t problematic.

One thing Stevenson’s poem might have gained by being aimed at children is that it’s delightfully spare and unfussy. The adult verse of 1885 was often not so, but here there are no classical allusions, no high-flown metaphors, just that memory of candlelight, an evening’s sunlight, some active birds, and footsteps on the street. The poem is not idealized at all, instead it’s simply present in the child’s conundrum.

I performed it with a 12-string acoustic guitar, an instrument I always want to keep around in addition to the more common 6 string guitar. My music is simple and unfussy today, as is fitting for Stevenson’s poem. You can hear it with the audio player you should see below. No player? Some ways of viewing this won’t show it, but this backup highlighted link will open a new tab with an audio player then.

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