Bed in Summer
In winter I get up at nightAnd dress by yellow candle-light.In summer quite the other way,I have to go to bed by day.
I have to go to bed and seeThe birds still hopping on the tree,Or hear the grown-up people's feetStill going past me in the street.
And does it not seem hard to you,When all the sky is clear and blue,And I should like so much to play,To have to go to bed by day?
About this text
Bed in Summer is in the public domain. This text is taken from A Child's Garden of Verses, Project Gutenberg ebook #136; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Robert Louis Stevenson, Bed in Summer, in A Child's Garden of Verses (1885), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #136, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/stevenson-childs-garden/bed-in-summer.html, id L07173.
Form and metre
Bed in Summer is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 AABB nightA · lightA · wayB · dayB
- 2 AABB seeA · treeA · feetB · streetB
- 3 AABB youA · blueA · playB · dayB
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| In winter I get up at night | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| And dress by yellow candle-light. | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| In summer quite the other way, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| I have to go to bed by day. | 8 | ········ |
| I have to go to bed and see | 8 | ········ |
| The birds still hopping on the tree, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Or hear the grown-up people's feet | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Still going past me in the street. | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| And does it not seem hard to you, | 8 | ········ |
| When all the sky is clear and blue, | 8 | ········ |
| And I should like so much to play, | 8 | ········ |
| To have to go to bed by day? | 8 | ········ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.