Summer Sun

Robert Louis Stevenson · 1885

Catalog grade guidance: K–5 — Short children’s lyric; good for early memorization and reading aloud.

22 content lines · 134 words · Est. recitation about 1 min 21 sec (approx.)

Public-domain text for reading and recitation practice. Source: Project Gutenberg #136.Estimated time uses ~120 words/minute plus short pauses—not a contest rule.

Summer Sun

  Great is the sun, and wide he goes
  Through empty heaven with repose;
  And in the blue and glowing days
  More thick than rain he showers 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.


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