A short bedtime poem, a child looking back on a happy, well-behaved day before drifting off to sleep. Gentle and quiet, built for the very last poem of the night.
From A Child's Garden of Verses. See the whole collection.
I woke before the morning, I was happy all the day,
I never said an ugly word, but smiled and stuck to play.
And now at last the sun is going down behind the wood,
And I am very happy, for I know that I've been good.
My bed is waiting cool and fresh, with linen smooth and fair
And I must be off to sleepsin-by, and not forget my prayer.
I know that, till to-morrow I shall see the sun arise,
No ugly dream shall fright my mind, no ugly sight my eyes.
But slumber hold me tightly till I waken in the dawn,
And hear the thrushes singing in the lilacs round the lawn.
About this poem
From A Child's Garden of Verses (1885)
One more from Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses (1885). It is a child looking back on a whole day at bedtime and finding it good: woke early, played, said nothing unkind, and now the sun is going down behind the wood. The poem is quiet and pleased with itself in a way children rarely get to be out loud, which is part of why it still lands.
Save this one for the end of a genuinely good day, read slowly as the light goes. It rewards a child for the ordinary business of being kind and playing well, without making a lecture of it. If the day was not good, pick another poem. This one only works when it is telling the truth.
Public domain. Text from A Child's Garden of Verses (Robert Louis Stevenson, 1885), via Project Gutenberg. View the source edition