Summer Sun

Robert Louis Stevenson

Teacher card

Published: 1885, in A Child's Garden of Verses
Length: 20 lines, 129 words, 1 word in 43 is long
Year band: Reading load: Years 3–4. A guide from word length, not a curriculum level.
Themes: summer, sun
Time: 5–10 min, depending on the activity

The text

Great is the sun, and wide he goesThrough empty heaven without repose;And in the blue and glowing daysMore thick than rain he showers his rays.

Though closer still the blinds we pullTo keep the shady parlour cool,Yet he will find a chink or twoTo slip his golden fingers through.

The dusty attic spider-cladHe, through the keyhole, maketh glad;And through the broken edge of tilesInto the laddered hay-loft smiles.

Meantime his golden face aroundHe bares to all the garden ground,And sheds a warm and glittering lookAmong the ivy's inmost nook.

Above the hills, along the blue,Round the bright air with footing true,To please the child, to paint the rose,The gardener of the World, he goes.

Robert Louis Stevenson (died 1894), A Child's Garden of Verses (1885), lines 1960–1983 of Project Gutenberg ebook #25609. Public domain in Australia: the author died before 1955. Copied word for word and checked against the ebook.

What to do with it

One link and one task line for each activity. Send a student the one you want them to do, or print this page and hand it round; each link has a QR code.

Its lines are dealt for the sky in the weather poemsin weatherline · 20 lines · about 5–10 min
Task for students (you can change the sentence before you print; nothing is saved)See where weatherline takes lines from this poem, then read today's poem the sky has chosen.
See where weatherline takes lines from this poem, then read today's poem the sky has chosen.
weatherline.popplepoetry.com/sources#rl-sun

Send the whole hand-out

This page’s link. Students open it, read the text and pick what to do; nothing asks them to sign in.

Link for the whole text

https://popplepoetry.com/find/stevenson-summer-sun · popplepoetry.com