How Do You Like To Go Up In A Swing? ~by Robert Louis Stevenson

One of my favorite Poems

is The Swing by Robert Louis Stevenson.

My Mother taught in a One Room School House in the 1940s.

Memory work was a required part of the State’s Curriculum.

So she had many wonderful poems that she would recite to me

when she was doing her Farmhouse Chores.

“How do you like to go up in a swing,

Up in the air so blue?

Oh, I do think it is the pleasantest thing,

Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,

Till I can see so wide,

Rivers and trees and cattle and all

Over the countryside.

Till I look down on the garden green,

Down in the roof so brown.

Up and the air I go flying again,

Up in the air and down!”

Henry and I went out to The Swing every morning…

…And every afternoon.

(Weather permitting, of course)

I worked to memorize those three beautiful verses,

And recite them with Henry when swinging.

This is the day, I told him that Gigi has to go home the next day.

It almost looks like he is processing that bit of information.

But no worries,

Henry will keep on Swinging

all summer long!

Take care,

~Natalie