A young voice grumbles about the injustice of seasonal sleep schedules. In winter, the speaker wakes in darkness, dressing by the glow of a candle. But summer flips everything: bedtime arrives while the sun still shines, and that feels like a cheat. Lying in bed, the child watches birds bounce on branches outside and listens to grown-ups’ footsteps on the pavement — sounds of a world still very much awake and off-limits. The question thrown at the reader is half-accusing, half-pleading: don’t you see how unfair this is? The sky is clear and blue, the longing to play is overwhelming, yet here comes the command to sleep. The poem captures that keen childhood sense of time stolen, of rules that ignore the light outside your window. Its mood is wistful and gently indignant, turning a simple bedtime into a small, sunlit tragedy.
Bed in Summer — Summary
In winter I get up at night And dress by yellow candle-light. In summer quite the other way, I have to go to bed by day.
I have to go to bed and see The birds still hopping on the tree, Or hear the grown-up people's feet Still going past me in the street.
And does it not seem hard to you, When all the sky is clear and blue, And I should like so much to play, To have to go to bed by day?