Bed by Day

I remember reading this poem as a child, and completely identifying with it. I never understood why I had to go to bed when the sun was shining through my blinds, and I could hear teenagers laughing and talking outside my window. It's strange to me that now I am the one staying up, and keeping young children awake, because they hear my voice outside their windows.

Bed in Summer

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?

~Robert Louis Stevenson