To Any Reader

Robert Louis Stevenson · 1885

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

19 content lines · 128 words · Est. recitation about 1 min 13 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.

To Any Reader

  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.










End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Child's Garden of Verses, by
Robert Louis Stevenson