RHYMES OF CHILDHOOD

FOREIGN LANDS

Up into the cherry tree

Who should climb but little me?
I held the trunk with both my hands
And looked abroad on foreign lands.

I saw the next door garden lie,
Adorned with flowers, before my eye,
And many pleasant places more
That I had never seen before.

I saw the dimpling river pass
And be the sky's blue looking-glass;
The dusty roads go up and down
With people tramping in to town.

If I could find a higher tree
Farther and farther I should see,
To where the grown-up river slips
Into the sea among the ships.

To where the roads on either hand
Lead onward into fairy land,
Where all the children dine at five,
And all the playthings come alive.

Robert Louis Stevenson

THE GARDENER

The gardener does not love to talk,
He makes me keep the gravel walk;
And when he puts his tools away,
He locks the door and takes the key.

Away behind the currant row
Where no one else but cook may go,
Far in the plots, I see him dig,

Old and serious, brown and big.

He digs the flowers, green, red, and blue,
Nor wishes to be spoken to.

He digs the flowers and cuts the hay,
And never seems to want to play.

Silly gardener! summer goes,

And winter comes with pinching toes,
When in the garden bare and brown
You must lay your barrow down.

Well now, and while the summer stays,
To profit by these garden days

O how much wiser you would be
To play at Indian wars with me!

Robert Louis Stevenson

MY SHADOW

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my
bed.

The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to growNot at all like proper children, which is always very slow;

For he sometimes shoots up taller like an India-rubber ball,

And he sometimes gets so little that there's none of him at all.

He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play,
And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.
He stays so close beside me, he's a coward you can see;
I'd think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to
me!

One morning, very early, before the sun was up,

I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;
But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head,
Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in
bed.

Robert Louis Stevenson

THE LAND OF COUNTERPANE

When I was sick and lay a-bed,
I had two pillows at my head,
And all my toys beside me lay
To keep me happy all the day.

And sometimes for an hour or so
I watched my leaden soldiers go,
With different uniforms and drills,
Among the bed-clothes, through the hills;

And sometimes sent my ships in fleets
All up and down among the sheets;
Or brought my trees and houses out,
And planted cities all about.

I was the giant great and still
That sits upon the pillow-hill,
And sees before him, dale and plain,
The pleasant land of counterpane.

Robert Louis Stevenson

THE PEDDLER'S CARAVAN

I wish I lived in a caravar

With a horse to drive, like a peddler-man!
Where he comes from nobody knows,

Or where he goes to, but on he goes!

His caravan has windows two,

And a chimney of tin, that the smoke comes through;

He has a wife, with a baby brown,

And they go riding from town to town.

Chairs to mend, and delf to sell!

He clashes the basins like a bell;
Tea-trays, baskets ranged in order,
Plates, with alphabets round the border!

The roads are brown, and the sea is green,
But his house is like a bathing-machine;
The world is round, and he can ride,
Rumble and slash, to the other side!

With the peddler-man I should like to roam,
And write a book when I came home;

All the people would read my book,

Just like the Travels of Captain Cook!

William Brighty Rands

MR. COGGS

A watch will tell the time of day,
Or tell it nearly, any way,
Excepting when it's overwound,

Or when you drop it on the ground.

If any of our watches stop,
We haste to Mr. Coggs's shop;
For though to scold us he pretends,

He's quite among our special friends.

He fits a dice-box in his eye,

And takes a long and thoughtful spy,

And prods the wheels, and says, "Dear, dear!
More carelessness, I greatly fear."

And then he lays the dice-box down
And frowns a most prodigious frown;
But if we ask him what's the time,
He'll make his gold repeater chime.

Edward Verrall Lucas

LITTLE RAINDROPS

Oh, where do you come from,
You little drops of rain,
Pitter patter, pitter patter,
Down the window-pane?

They won't let me walk,

And they won't let me play,

And they won't let me go

Out of doors at all to-day.

They put away my playthings
Because I broke them all,

And then they locked up all my bricks,
And took away my ball.

Tell me, little raindrops,

Is that the way you play,
Pitter patter, pitter patter,
All the rainy day?