A Childs Garden of Verses | Page 4

XV
Auntie's Skirts

Whenever Auntie moves around,?Her dresses make a curious sound,?They trail behind her up the floor,?And trundle after through the door.
XVI
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.
XVII
The Land of Nod

From breakfast on through all the day?At home among my friends I stay,?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--?All alone beside the streams?And up the mountain-sides of dreams.
The strangest things are these for me,?Both things to eat and things to see,?And many frightening sights abroad?Till morning in the land of Nod.
Try as I like to find the way,?I never can get back by day,?Nor can remember plain and clear?The curious music that I hear.
XVIII
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 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 goes 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 behind 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.
XIX
System

Every night my prayers I say,?And get my dinner every day;?And every day that I've been good,?I get an