A child climbs a cherry tree and imagines seeing all the way to fairy land from the top. The poem builds outward step by step, which makes it satisfying to read slowly, one new view at a time.
From A Child's Garden of Verses. See the whole collection.
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.
Public domain. Text from A Child's Garden of Verses (Robert Louis Stevenson, 1885), via Project Gutenberg. View the source edition