In our toy store, as soon as you'd walk thru the doors, we had about 20% of our space letting Western Publishing occupy the shelves...mainly Golden Books. We also had a revoving rack containing many volumes of literature for the eyes of young children.
One of the volumes that pleased me was A Child's Garden of Verses...and nobody touched it. Everyone would walk right by...and I took this personally since I had ordered heavy believing this would be a hit.
Why did I feel this way? When I was a very young child of about 4, my Mother encouraged me to recite this poem....and it's touched my heart since.
I don't believe many children today even heard of it.....and here it is!
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| Stevenson, Robert Louis (1850–1894). A Child’s Garden of Verses and Underwoods. 1913. |
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| 19. My Shadow |
| 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. | |
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| 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. | |
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| 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! | |
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| 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.
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3 comments:
Ruth Faganposted toHilda Gordon
A CHILD'S GARDEN OF VERSES was the favorite children's book in our house. I was given a very old copy and sent it to Richard on his 30th birthday. . .ruth
i, too, remember it, now that you have jogged my memory
i loved my little golden books..i had so many...my dad made a little book case to keep them in...my daughter now has them
a good stroll down memory lane..
They didn't buy A Child's Garden of Verses? How could they not! That was one of the very few books we actually owned, and I loved it! Mom would read several poems each night as she tucked me into bed. One of my favorites was "Land of Counterpane". And, of course, "The Swing". One night Dad and I built the very same "Block City" that appeared in the illustration for that poem out of my own set of blocks. Years later, I read all of these beloved poems to Amber and Phill!
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