Lyric Poem · For Kids
Home, My Little Children, Hear Are Songs For You
COME, my little children, here are songs for you;
Some are short and some are long, and all, all are new.
You must learn to sing them very small and clear,
Very true to time and tune and pleasing to the ear.
Mark the note that rises, mark the notes that fall,
Mark the time when broken, and the swing of it all.
So when night is come, and you have gone to bed,
All the songs you love to sing shall echo in your head.
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“Home, My Little Children, Hear Are Songs For You” by Robert Louis Stevenson — quilloak.com/poems/home-my-little-children-hear-are-songs-for-you
Quick facts
- Poem
- Home, My Little Children, Hear Are Songs For You
- Poet
- Robert Louis Stevenson
- Length
- 8 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem, Short Poems
- Themes
- For Kids, Childhood, Love, Short
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 8 lines · 2 quatrains
- Line length
- Lines run 11-13 syllables (median 12), consistent with hexameter. No single length dominates, which is normal once elision and contraction are in play.
Want the rules this form is measured against? Read what makes a lyric poem, or run your own draft through the form checker to see the same measurements on your lines. How we measure · Report a mistake
Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- Robert Louis Stevenson1850–1894
- Source record
- PoetryDBHome, My Little Children, Hear Are Songs For You by robert-louis-stevenson, PoetryDB transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- Not recorded in the imported source
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 fdef05530096ddb0…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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