Poem by Robert Louis Stevenson

A Child's Garden of Verses. The Child Alone. 3. My Kingdom

Down by a shining water well
I found a very little dell,
    No higher than my head. 
The heather and the gorse about
In summer bloom were coming out,
    Some yellow and some red.

I called the little pool a sea;
The little hills were big to me;
    For I am very small. 
I made a boat, I made a town,
I searched the caverns up and down,
    And named them one and all.

And all about was mine, I said,
The little sparrows overhead,
    The little minnows too. 
This was the world and I was king;
For me the bees came by to sing,
    For me the swallows flew.

I played there were no deeper seas,
Nor any wider plains than these,
    Nor other kings than me. 
At last I heard my mother call
Out from the house at evenfall,
    To call me home to tea.

And I must rise and leave my dell,
And leave my dimpled water well,
    And leave my heather blooms. 
Alas! and as my home I neared,
How very big my nurse appeared.
    How great and cool the rooms!

1. Songs of Travel and Other Verses. 13. Mater Triumphans
2. About the Sheltered Garden Ground
3. An English Breeze
4. As One Who Having Wandered All Night Long
5. To Sydney

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