Whole Duty of Children
Robert Louis Stevenson · 1885
ages 2 to 5poetryread aloudabout 14 seconds aloud
Four brisk lines laying out good manners, told with a perfectly straight face. It is short enough to become a running family joke as much as a poem.
From A Child's Garden of Verses. See the whole collection.
A child should always say what's true
And speak when he is spoken to,
And behave mannerly at table;
At least as far as he is able.
Public domain. Text from A Child's Garden of Verses (Robert Louis Stevenson, 1885), via Project Gutenberg. View the source edition