The Wind

Robert Louis Stevenson

Teacher card

Published: 1885, in A Child's Garden of Verses
Length: 18 lines, 128 words, 1 word in 32 is long
Year band: Reading load: Years 3–4. A guide from word length, not a curriculum level.
Themes: wind
Time: 5–10 min, depending on the activity

The text

I saw you toss the kites on highAnd blow the birds about the sky;And all around I heard you pass,Like ladies' skirts across the grass—O wind, a-blowing all day long,O wind, that sings so loud a song!

I saw the different things you did,But always you yourself you hid.I felt you push, I heard you call,I could not see yourself at all—O wind, a-blowing all day long,O wind, that sings so loud a song!

O you that are so strong and cold,O blower, are you young or old?Are you a beast of field and tree,Or just a stronger child than me?O wind, a-blowing all day long,O wind, that sings so loud a song!

Robert Louis Stevenson (died 1894), A Child's Garden of Verses (1885), lines 938–957 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 · 18 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-kites

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-wind · popplepoetry.com