A Child’s Garden of Verses
It’s always the mothers who buy the presents, well, that’s 
how it was in my home. Mum would remember the birthdays and would shop and choose and plan and generally come up trumps. She'd know who would love a dolls house or a garage at Christmas - though she got those mixed up one year and while my brother cried, my sister stubbornly refused to give up the garage! However on my eleventh birthday, it was my father who gave me the gift of a book. It’s sitting on the table beside me as I write, its dark green leatherette cover with silver writing, A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson. It has travelled with me back and forth over the Irish Sea as I left home, went to London, returned, back again to Nottingham, then Sussex and now home again, safe and sound. I took it down from the highest shelf, where books I never lend reside, to think about as I write. He inscribed, Wishing Mary a very happy Birthday 20th June 1963, Daddy. And now, as I turn the page again I find, with an introduction by Elizabeth Goudge. Isn’t life just full of wonderful surprises!
Time To Rise
A birdie with a yellow bill
Hopped upon the window sill.
Cocked his shining eye and said:
“Ain’t you ‘shamed, you sleepy-head?”
how it was in my home. Mum would remember the birthdays and would shop and choose and plan and generally come up trumps. She'd know who would love a dolls house or a garage at Christmas - though she got those mixed up one year and while my brother cried, my sister stubbornly refused to give up the garage! However on my eleventh birthday, it was my father who gave me the gift of a book. It’s sitting on the table beside me as I write, its dark green leatherette cover with silver writing, A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson. It has travelled with me back and forth over the Irish Sea as I left home, went to London, returned, back again to Nottingham, then Sussex and now home again, safe and sound. I took it down from the highest shelf, where books I never lend reside, to think about as I write. He inscribed, Wishing Mary a very happy Birthday 20th June 1963, Daddy. And now, as I turn the page again I find, with an introduction by Elizabeth Goudge. Isn’t life just full of wonderful surprises!
Time To Rise
A birdie with a yellow bill
Hopped upon the window sill.
Cocked his shining eye and said:
“Ain’t you ‘shamed, you sleepy-head?”
Labels: Elizabeth Goudge, poem, Robert Louis Stevenson
2 Comments:
Your book sounds like the real treasure -- along with your father! What insight he must have had to give his little girl a gift she would cherish her entire life. My best wishes to him for a happy father's day.
My mother also had a copy of The Child's Garden of Verses. She was born in 1936, so I imagine the book is between that date and 1946. I should research it. There's no copyright inside. It's not quite the lovely treasure that is yours, but I love it anyway:
The cover,
title page,
Time to Rise,
a beautiful illustration,
and my mom, the little girl who
owned it.
Thanks for letting me share.
Thank you so much for your comments. I will, as always, think of him on Father's Day and thank him for reading to me as a child. I can still hear his voice. Mary xx
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