THE POETRY OF ROBERT LEWIS STEVENSON

I'll never forget the up-and-down lilt of my mother's voice as she recited "The Swing", and how it matched the rhythm and sway of my body gliding through the air on the swing set at our small neighborhood playground.  With each push from her and pump of my legs, I'd go higher and higher, trying to get "up in the air and over the wall", just like the child in the poem by Robert Louis Stevenson.  My own children heard this rhyme from me, as I pushed them on our backyard swing set, or read to them from A CHILD'S GARDEN OF VERSES -- the collection of poems that Stevenson originally wrote for his own children.

THE SWING

How do you like to go up in a swing,

Up in the air so blue?

Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing

Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,

Till I can see so wide,

River and trees and cattle and all

Over the countryside--

Till I look down on the garden green,

Down on the roof so brown--

Up in the air I go flying again,

Up in the air and down!

TIME TO RISE

A birdie with a yellow bill

Hopped upon my window sill,

Cocked his shining eye and said:

"Ain't you 'shamed, you sleepy-head!"

AT THE SEASIDE

When I was down beside the sea

A wooden spade they gave to me

To dig the sandy shore.

My holes were empty like a cup.

In every hole the sea came up,

Till it could come no more.

My children are now grown and the swing sets are empty, but someday my grandchildren will fill the seats and I'll recite THE SWING again... 

Black and White Swing Painting by Vishinsky