How Do You LIke to Go Up in a Swing?

Eulalie, "The Swing"

Eulalie, “The Swing”

We currently are in the midst of our fall break and I celebrated by spending the day with Esmé, my two-year-old granddaughter. For half an hour I pushed her in a swing tied to a maple tree in our neighbor’s yard. She probably would have insisted on swinging even longer if she hadn’t had to leave.

As she gazed in fascination at the leafy branches above her, I couldn’t help but think of “The Swing” from Robert Louis Stevenson’s Child’s Garden of Verses (1885). I liked it as a child but had never examined it critically before. Looking at it in the light of Esmé’s enjoyment, I realized it captures many of the essential elements of swinging. Here’s the poem:

The Swing

By Robert Louis Stevenson

How do you like to go up in a swing,
  Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
  Ever a child can do!
 
Up in the air and over the wall,
  Till I can see so wide,
Rivers and trees and cattle and all
  Over the countryside—
 
Till I look down on the garden green,
  Down on the roof so brown—
Up in the air I go flying again,
  Up in the air and down!

The poem conveys the regular rhythm of swinging, along with the sudden vistas that are opened up. It is irrelevant that the vistas described in the poem probably would not be witnessed from an actual swing. What Stevenson captures is how the child experiences swinging. I certainly witnessed such wonder in Esme’s eyes.

And then the session ends and the child comes down.

My mother believes that A Child’s Garden of Verses is underrated, and I think she’s right. Although some of the poems have an overly sentimentalized view of childhood, others capture the complex inner lives of children. Take “The Unseen Playmate,” for instance, which captures an interior dialogue that children engage in when they play alone. The poem has an eery or uncanny feel to it:

When children are playing alone on the green,
In comes the playmate that never was seen.
When children are happy and lonely and good,
The Friend of the Children comes out of the wood.

Nobody heard him and nobody saw,
His is a picture you never could draw,
But he’s sure to be present, abroad or at home,
When children are happy and playing alone.

He lies in the laurels, he runs on the grass,
He sings when you tinkle the musical glass;
Whene’er you are happy and cannot tell why,
The Friend of the Children is sure to be by!

He loves to be little, he hates to be big,
‘Tis he that inhabits the caves that you dig;
‘Tis he when you play with your soldiers of tin
That sides with the Frenchmen and never can win.

‘Tis he, when at night you go off to your bed,
Bids you go to your sleep and not trouble your head;
For wherever they’re lying, in cupboard or shelf,
‘Tis he will take care of your playthings himself!

If you grew up with the collection, it’s worth revisiting it. Or visiting it for the first time.

Further thought: Here’s a connection I got from a blogger when I was looking for an illustration. A favorite passage of mine from Charlotte’s Web was probably inspired by “The Swing”:

Mr. Zuckerman had the best swing in the county.  It was a single long piece of heavy rope tied to the beam over the north doorway.  At the bottom end of the rope was a fat knot to sit on.  It was arranged so that you could swing without being pushed.  you climbed a ladder to the hayloft. Then, holding the rope, you stood at the edge and looked down, and were scared and dizzy.  Then you straddled the knot, so that it acted as a seat.  Then you got up all your nerve, took a deep breath, and jumped.  For a second you seemed to be falling to the barn floor far below, but then suddenly the rope would begin to catch you and you would sail through the barn door going a mile a minute, with the wind whistling in your eyes and ears and hair.  Then you would zoom upward into the sky, and look up at the clouds, and the rope would twist and you would twist and turn with the rope.  Then you would drop down, down, down, out of the sky and come sailing back into the barn almost into the hayloft, then sail out again (not quite so far this time), then in again (not quite so  high), then out again, then in again, then out, then in; and then you’d jump off and fall down and let somebody else try it.

I now realize that my father must have been inspired by the poem and E. B. White both when he set up a rope swing in our back yard. One would hold the swing with one hand and climb to the top of our jungle gym. The ride, which was short but intense, seemed to take us over the horse fence in our neighbor’s yard.

One other thought: I’ve just made a connection between our rope swing and my father’s love of flying, which I’ve written about numerous times (for instance, here).

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