Good and Bad Children

Source

Source: Project Gutenberg #136 Source URL: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/136 Public domain basis: Public-domain English poems by Robert Louis Stevenson (1885). Coverage: Complete individual poem extracted from parent edition a-childs-garden-of-verses at bytes 19064-19864; checksum b6891ef9429bd7f1fd1c33160b0ab0e231815ca440bed300d9d66ed4063154db.

# Good and Bad Children

Good and Bad Children

Children, you are very little, And your bones are very brittle; If you would grow great and stately, You must try to walk sedately.

You must still be bright and quiet, And content with simple diet; And remain, through all bewild'ring, Innocent and honest children.

Happy hearts and happy faces, Happy play in grassy places-- That was how in ancient ages, Children grew to kings and sages.

But the unkind and the unruly, And the sort who eat unduly, They must never hope for glory-- Theirs is quite a different story!

Cruel children, crying babies, All grow up as geese and gabies, Hated, as their age increases, By their nephews and their nieces.

XXVIII