To Willie and Henrietta
Robert Louis Stevenson · 1885
A closing dedication to Stevenson's cousins, looking back from the grown-ups' seat at children playing in the garden they once ruled themselves. Gentle and reflective rather than playful, it works well as a closing piece for the collection.
From A Child's Garden of Verses. See the whole collection.
If two may read aright
These rhymes of old delight
And house and garden play,
You too, my cousins, and you only, may.
You in a garden green
With me were king and queen,
Were hunter, soldier, tar,
And all the thousand things that children are.
Now in the elders' seat
We rest with quiet feet,
And from the window-bay
We watch the children, our successors, play.
"Time was," the golden head
Irrevocably said;
But time which none can bind,
While flowing fast away, leaves love behind.
About this poem
Poem text explicitly addresses them as 'my cousins' and describes 'king and queen' and 'hunter' games in a shared garden.
"To Willie and Henrietta" is another of the closing dedication poems, addressed to two of Stevenson's real cousins who apparently shared the games behind the book: a garden turned into a kingdom, hunting, exploring. It only really makes sense once you know it's private, written for two specific children rather than readers in general.
Worth reading alongside "To Auntie" as a pair.
Public domain. Text from A Child's Garden of Verses (Robert Louis Stevenson, 1885), via Project Gutenberg. View the source edition