The Land of Counterpane
Robert Louis Stevenson · 1885
A child stuck in bed with an illness turns the pillows and blanket-folds into hills, fleets and whole cities for toy soldiers and ships. It captures how much a bored, imaginative child can build out of almost nothing.
From A Child's Garden of Verses. See the whole collection.
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.
Public domain. Text from A Child's Garden of Verses (Robert Louis Stevenson, 1885), via Project Gutenberg. View the source edition