A Childs Garden of Verses | Page 4

Where Go the Boats?

Dark brown is the river,
Golden is the sand.
It flows along for ever,
With trees on either hand.
Green leaves a-floating,
Castles of the foam,
Boats of mine a-boating--
Where will all come home?

On goes the river
And out past the mill,
Away down the valley,
Away down the hill.
Away down the river,
A hundred miles or more,
Other little children
Shall bring my boats ashore.
X V
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.