Poem by Robert Louis Stevenson

A Child's Garden of Verses. 27. 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. 

1. I Know Not How, But As I Count
2. Requiem
3. Songs of Travel and Other Verses. 36. TO S.C.
4. Light as the Linnet on My Way I Start
5. Sonet VI. As in the Hostel by the Bridge I Sate

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