Bed in Summer

12 lines

Robert Louis Stevenson·1850–1894·Lyric·Victorian

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Summary Meaning

The poem 'Bed in Summer' juxtaposes the child's natural longing for extended daylight play against the rigid imposition of adult-mandated bedtime, thereby exploring the foundational tension between innate freedom and societal discipline. Symbolically, the summer evening's lingering light represents unbounded possibility and the natural world's harmony, while enforced darkness within the bedroom signifies artificial constraint and the suppression of youthful vitality. Philosophically, the work resonates with Romantic and pre-transcendentalist ideals of childhood innocence and the corrupting influence of civilization's arbitrary rules. Stevenson's tone is plaintive but gently ironic, capturing the cognitive dissonance of a child who perceives the seasonal inversion of day and night as a personal injustice rather than a natural cycle.

n winter I get up at night

And 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 see

The birds still hopping on the tree,

Or hear the grown-up people's feet

Still 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?

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