A Child's Garden of Verses (Everyman's Library Children's Classics) Read online

  THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK

  PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

  First published 1885

  First included in Everyman’s Library 1925

  First included in Everyman’s Library Children’s Classics 1992

  Design and typography © 1992 by Everyman’s Library

  Book design by Barbara de Wilde, Carol Devine Carson and Peter B. Willberg

  Fifth printing (US)

  Five of Ernest H. Shepard’s illustrations from Dream Days by Kenneth Grahame are reprinted on the endpapers by permission of The Bodley Head, London. The sixth illustration is by S. C. Hulme Beaman.

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Distributed by Random House, Inc., New York. Published in the United Kingdom by Everyman’s Library, Northburgh House, 10 Northburgh Street, London EC1V0AT, and distributed by Random House (UK) Ltd.

  US website: www.randomhouse.com/everymans

  eISBN: 978-0-375-71228-9

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  v3.1

  OR THE LONG NIGHTS YOU LAY AWAKE

  AND WATCHED FOR MY UNWORTHY SAKE:

  FOR YOUR MOST COMFORTABLE HAND

  THAT LED ME THROUGH THE UNEVEN LAND:

  FOR ALL THE STORY-BOOKS YOU READ,

  FOR ALL THE PAINS YOU COMFORTED,

  FOR ALL YOU PITIED, ALL YOU BORE,

  IN SAD AND HAPPY DAYS OF YORE: –

  MY SECOND MOTHER, MY FIRST WIFE,

  THE ANGEL OF MY INFANT LIFE –

  FROM THE SICK CHILD, NOW WELL AND OLD,

  TAKE, NURSE, THE LITTLE BOOK YOU HOLD!

  AND GRANT IT, HEAVEN, THAT ALL WHO READ

  MAY FIND AS DEAR A NURSE AT NEED,

  AND EVERY CHILD WHO LISTS MY RHYME,

  IN THE BRIGHT FIRESIDE, NURSERY CLIME,

  MAY HEAR IT IN AS KIND A VOICE

  AS MADE MY CHILDISH DAYS REJOICE!

  R.L.S

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Bed in Summer

  A Thought

  At the Seaside

  Young Night Thought

  Whole Duty of Children

  Rain

  Pirate Story

  Foreign Lands

  Windy Nights

  Travel

  Singing

  Looking Forward

  A Good Play

  Where Go the Boats?

  Auntie’s Skirts

  The Land of Counterpane

  The Land of Nod

  My Shadow

  System

  A Good Boy

  Escape at Bedtime

  Marching Song

  The Cow

  Happy Thought

  The Wind

  Keepsake Mill

  Good and Bad Children

  Foreign Children

  The Sun’s Travels

  The Lamplighter

  My Bed is a Boat

  The Moon

  The Swing

  Time to Rise

  Looking-glass River

  Fairy-Bread

  From a Railway Carriage

  Winter Time

  The Hayloft

  Farewell to the Farm

  North-West Passage:

  1. Good Night

  2. Shadow March

  3. In Port

  THE CHILD ALONE

  The Unseen Playmate

  My Ship and I

  My Kingdom

  Picture-books in Winter

  My Treasures

  Block City

  The Land of Story-books

  Armies in the Fire

  The Little Land

  GARDEN DAYS

  Night and Day

  Nest Eggs

  The Flowers

  Summer Sun

  The Dumb Soldier

  Autumn Fires

  The Gardener

  Historical Associations

  ENVOYS

  To Willie and Henrietta

  To My Mother

  To Auntie

  To Minnie

  To My Name-Child

  To Any Reader

  About the Author

  About the Illustrator

  Other Books by This Author

  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?

  LL night long, and every night,

  When my mamma puts out the light,

  I see the people marching by,

  As plain as day, before my eye.

  Armies and emperors and kings,

  All carrying different kinds of things,

  And marching in so grand a way,

  You never saw the like by day.

  So fine a show was never seen

  At the great circus on the green;

  For every kind of beast and man

  Is marching in that caravan.

  At first they move a little slow,

  But still the faster on they go.

  And still beside them close I keep

  Until we reach the town of Sleep.

  THREE of us afloat in the meadow by the swing,

  Three of us aboard in the basket on the lea.

  Winds are in the air, they are blowing in the spring,

  And waves are on the meadows like the waves there are at sea.

  Where shall we adventure, to-day that we’re afloat,

  Wary of the weather and steering by a star?

  Shall it be to Africa, a-steering of the boat,

  To Providence, or Babylon, or off to Malabar?

  Hi! but here’s a squadron a-rowing on the sea –

  Cattle on the meadow a-charging with a roar!

  Quick, and we’ll escape them, they’re as mad as they can be.

  The wicket is the harbour and the garden is the shore.

  P 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.

  HENEVER the moon and stars are set,

  Whenever the wind is high,

  All night long in the dark and wet,

  A man goes riding by.

  Late in the night when the fires are out,

  Why does h
e gallop and gallop about?

  Whenever the trees are crying aloud,

  And ships are tossed at sea,

  By, on the highway, low and loud,

  By at the gallop goes he.

  By at the gallop he goes, and then

  By he comes back at the gallop again.

  I SHOULD like to rise and go

  Where the golden apples grow;

  Where below another sky

  Parrot islands anchored lie,

  And, watched by cockatoos and goats,

  Lonely Crusoes building boats;

  Where in sunshine reaching out

  Eastern cities, miles about,

  Are with mosque and minaret

  Among sandy gardens set,

  And the rich goods from near and far

  Hang for sale in the bazaar;

  Where the Great Wall round China goes,

  And on one side the desert blows,

  And with bell and voice and drum,

  Cities on the other hum;

  Where are forests, hot as fire,

  Wide as England, tall as a spire,

  Full of apes and coco-nuts

  And the negro hunters’ huts;

  Where the knotty crocodile

  Lies and blinks in the Nile,

  And the red flamingo flies

  Hunting fish before his eyes;

  Where in jungles, near and far,

  Man-devouring tigers are,

  Lying close and giving ear

  Lest the hunt be drawing near,

  Or a comer-by be seen

  Swinging in a palanquin;

  Where among the desert sands

  Some deserted city stands,

  All its children, sweep and prince,

  Grown to manhood ages since,

  Not a foot in street or house,

  Not a stir of child or mouse,

  And when kindly falls the night,

  In all the town no spark of light.

  There I’ll come when I’m a man

  With a camel caravan;

  Light a fire in the gloom

  Of some dusty dining-room;

  See the pictures on the walls,

  Heroes, fights and festivals;

  And in a corner find the toys

  Of the old Egyptian boys.

  F speckled eggs the birdie sings

  And nests among the trees;

  The sailor sings of ropes and things

  In ships upon the seas.

  The children sing in far Japan,

  The children sing in Spain;

  The organ with the organ man

  Is singing in the rain.

  WE built a ship upon the stairs

  All made of the back-bedroom chairs,

  And filled it full of sofa pillows

  To go a-sailing on the billows.

  We took a saw and several nails,

  And water in the nursery pails;

  And Tom said, ‘Let us also take

  An apple and a slice of cake’;

  Which was enough for Tom and me

  To go a-sailing on, till tea.

  We sailed along for days and days,

  And had the very best of plays;

  But Tom fell out and hurt his knee,

  So there was no one left but me.

  ARK 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.

  HEN 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.

  ROM breakfast on all through 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 there 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.

  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 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.

  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,

  With lots of toys and things to eat,

  He is a naughty child, I’m sure –

  Or else his dear papa is poor.

  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,

  No ugly dream shall fright my mind, no ugly sight my eyes,

  But slumber hold me tightly till I waken in the dawn,

  And hear the thrushes singing in the lilacs round the lawn.

  THE lights from the parlour and kitchen shone out

  Through the blinds and the windows and bars;

  And high overhead and all moving about,

  There were thousands of millions of stars.

  There ne’er were such thousands of leaves on a tree,

  Nor of people in church or the Park,

  As the crowds of the stars that looked down upon me,

  And that glittered and winked in the dark.

  The Dog, and the Plough,
and the Hunter, and all,

  And the star of the sailor, and Mars,

  These shone in the sky, and the pail by the wall

  Would be half full of water and stars.

  They saw me at last, and they chased me with cries,

  And they soon had me packed into bed;

  But the glory kept shining and bright in my eyes,

  And the stars going round in my head.

  BRING the comb and play upon it!

  Marching, here we come!

  Willie cocks his highland bonnet,

  Johnnie beats the drum.

  Mary Jane commands the party,

  Peter leads the rear;

  Feet in time, alert and hearty,

  Each a Grenadier!

  All in the most martial manner

  Marching double-quick;

  While the napkin like a banner

  Waves upon the stick!

  Here’s enough of fame and pillage,

  Great commander Jane!

  Now that we’ve been round the village,

  Let’s go home again.

  THE friendly cow, all red and white,

  I love with all my heart:

  She gives me cream with all her might,

  To eat with apple-tart.

  She wanders lowing here and there,

  And yet she cannot stray,

  All in the pleasant open air,

  The pleasant light of day;

  And blown by all the winds that pass

  And wet with all the showers,

  She walks among the meadow grass

  And eats the meadow flowers.

  I SAW you toss the kites on high

  And blow the birds about the sky;

  And all around I heard you pass,

  Like ladies’ skirts across the grass –

  O wind, a-blowing all day long,