"Time to Rise" Robert Louis Stevenson A birdie with a yellow bill Hopped upon the window sill Cocked his shining eye and said: "Ain't you shamed, you sleepy head?" | It seems I can’t stop running into Robert Louis Stevenson’s magical work, he’s become the only poet to appear not once, not twice but three times here. It must be a mark of the startling variety and charm of his work, no one writes children’s poetry quite like him. The simplicity and charisma contained in each candid little work that was published in “A Children’s Garden of Verses” is honestly delightful. An extraordinary blend of the chimerical and realistic, truthful and dreamlike Stevenson has adeptly mastered the art of grasping those rare and fleeting, unique facts of existence that are only true for children. His poetry blends imagination and innocence in a eloquent and captivating fashion, but he didn’t just publish works for children, Stevenson wrote an impressive spread of novels, poetry and journals about everything from being “Kidnapped” to account of the his own high seas voyages if you wish to read about his strange and wonderful life in greater detail I explored in my earlier post “Where Go the Boats” which is linked below. |
“Time to Rise” is clever little quatrain, arranged in a very basic, and yet elegantly classic format. All the lines are organized in iambic tetrameter( or a poetic line composed of eight syllables with phonetic stress on every second syllable) with the same number of syllables save the first, which has nine syllables and is dictated in trochaic feet(meaning every second syllable is unstressed). Apart, from the first line, Stevenson’s poem bears an audible and visual formatic resemblance to a single ballad stanza, but it’s rhyme scheme is distinctly unique. The rhyme scheme is the quite elementary and definitively traditional: AABB, popular in both children’s and beginner’s poetry. It is straightforward and the easiest to follow, with a pleasant ring and clear relation between the corresponding words. The rhyme scheme lends both fluency and magnetism to Stevenson’s literary flow. The first line is the one that characterizing “Time to Rise” as a children’s poem with the use of trochaic feet, which are commonly employed in nursery rhymes( such as the Mother Goose favorites: “This Little Piggy . . .”, “Little Bo-Peep”, “Pat-a-Cake” and others), but was also used by Edgar Allen Poe and Shakespeare to contrast the iambic pentameter employed in the rest of their poems. Stevenson’s combines both applications to create something with both innocent and punctual sound. Both the contrast and clarity of his work to draws the ear, providing the speaker with his audience’s undivided attention for the minute duration of this poem. Robert Louis Stevenson astutely crafts a poem that is both sanguine and archaic in tone, with structure that is highly conventional.
Of all the poetic devices Robert Louis Stevenson employs it is the quaint yet vivid imagery that makes “Time to Rise” memorable. In the first line we are politely introduced to “A birdie with a yellow bill,” the manipulation of the word “Birdie” in place of “bird” is canny and subtle it instantly verifies our mental picture of the avian described, it is no “crow” or “raven”, no “eagle or “hawk”, it’s a songbird maybe a robin, small and guiltless, a finch or sparrow, thrush or wren. This bird is a carrier of spring and happiness, whose only crime is the early demise of a bothersome insect. It’s movement is light and cheerful, similar to the cadence of the poem it bounced and “Hopped upon the window sill” rhyming delightfully and perhaps providing the visual of a dreamy sunrise. The bird then “Cocked his shining eye and said:” full of energy and life even now in the morning. This is the early bird at his best and so when he says with amusing cheek “Ain’t you shamed, you sleepy-head?” it doesn’t evoke feelings of bitterness or jealousy for the animal’s seemingly effortless stamina it simply inspires one to meet the morning with all the more joy and vigor. With the general use of pronouns, “the” instead of my and very little personal detail, “Time to Rise” remains applicable to anyone and conveys an open feel. Though the poems paints this bird as animated and with the personified capability of speech, it is easy to envision the scene as all in the imagination of the “sleepy-head” as he imagines the bird’s nervy mockery, even if it never says a word.
Robert Louis Stevenson it seems can’t help but create characters that are both realistically and absurdly lovable from swashbuckling pirates(“Treasure Island”) and mad scientists(“The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”) to mischievous shadows(“My Shadow” from “A Children’s Garden of Verses”) and angelic cows(“The Cow” also from “A Children’s Garden of Verses”) and his early bird is no exception. “Time to Raise” provides what is not quite a moral but certainly a value, the ability to wake with the sun, just like a bird. Everything from the poetic configuration and moral theme to the tone and uncomplicated poetic devices(such as clean personification and the understated use of childish dialect in the bird’s harmless derogating “sleepy-head” and improper english “ain’t”, perhaps to hint an annoying or immature character, or perhaps to highlight the creature as humorous or relatable to children either way it’s thoroughly enjoyable) come seamlessly together to create a masterpiece for the drowsy minds young and old. The perfect poetic pick-me-up “Time to Raise” captures the irresistible energy of childhood and endearing rush and hurry of mornings that vanish all too quickly.