THE LAND OF COUNTERPANE WHE HEN I was sick and lay a-bed, And sometimes for an hour or so And sometimes sent my ships in fleets I was the giant great and still 17 XVII THE LAND OF NOD ROM breakfast on through all the day my friends I stay, FROM on thy But every night I go abroad Afar into the land of Nod. All by myself I have to go, With none to tell me what to do— And up the mountain-sides of dreams. The strangest things are there for me, Try as I like to find the way, MY SHADOW 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 grow Not 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, bed. XIX SYSTEM 'VERY night my prayers I say, And get my dinner every day; And every day that I've been good, I get an orange after food. The child that is not clean and neat, I A GOOD BOY WOKE before the morning, I was happy all the day, I never said an ugly word, but smiled and stuck to play. And now at last the sun is going down behind the wood, And I am very happy, for I know that I've been good. My bed is waiting cool and fresh, with linen smooth and fair, And I must off to sleepsin-by, and not forget my prayer. I know that, till to-morrow I shall see the sun arise, eyes. But slumber hold me tightly till I waken in the dawn, And hear the thrushes singing in the lilacs round the lawn. |