Versedays: The Swing by Robert Louis Stevenson

Image Credit: swingsetplayground

I am sure most of us here enjoyed playing in the park as kids. My personal favorite was sitting on the swing and slowly moving to and fro while watching life around me. And this is something I have never grown out of. Sadly, swings are a rarity nowadays as children spend their free time cooped up inside playing computer games or watching television. I have seen few kids these days simply run down to a nearby park to play on the seesaw (another favorite of mine) or the swing. Well, Robert Louis Stevenson certainly would be sad. His poem The Swing, which is this week’s Versedays pick, captures the rush that you get from the simple joy of swinging high. After reading Kidnapped I have come to love Stevenson’s works and now his poetry. Taken from The Child’s Garden of Verses, this is as joyful to read as it is to swing.

The Swing


by Robert Louis Stevenson


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,
Rivers 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!