✦ The Poem ✦
Rain
by Robert Louis Stevenson, from A Child’s Garden of Verses (1885). Public domain.
The rain is raining all around, It falls on field and tree, It rains on the umbrellas here, And on the ships at sea.
✦ A Classic Poem ✦
Just four lines long, this tiny poem follows the rain as it falls on fields, trees, umbrellas, and ships far out at sea.
Read aloud by Storyland Classics ✦ 30 seconds ✦ Watch on YouTube
✦ The Poem ✦
by Robert Louis Stevenson, from A Child’s Garden of Verses (1885). Public domain.
The rain is raining all around, It falls on field and tree, It rains on the umbrellas here, And on the ships at sea.
✦ About the Poem ✦
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) is best known for Treasure Island and Kidnapped, but A Child’s Garden of Verses, published in 1885, may be his most loved book. He was often ill as a boy in Edinburgh and spent long days in bed, and these poems remember childhood from the inside, in a child’s own voice.
“Rain” is one of the shortest poems in A Child’s Garden of Verses, which makes it a perfect first poem to learn by heart. In four lines it moves from right here, under the umbrellas, all the way out to ships at sea, the way a child’s thoughts wander while watching rain from a window.
✦ Talk About It ✦