A brief dedication verse addressed to an aunt who clearly meant a great deal to a houseful of children. Stevenson asks what childhood would even have been without her. Short enough to read in a breath, and warm enough to mean it.
From A Child's Garden of Verses. See the whole collection.
_Chief of our aunts_—not only I,
But all your dozen of nurselings cry—
_What did the other children do?_
_And what were childhood, wanting you?_
Public domain. Text from A Child's Garden of Verses (Robert Louis Stevenson, 1885), via Project Gutenberg. View the source edition