Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry.
Volume I. Of Home: of Friendship. 1904. | | | | Poems of Home: II. For Children | | The Land of Story-books | | Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) |
| | | AT evening when the lamp is lit, | |
| Around the fire my parents sit; | |
| They sit at home and talk and sing, | |
| And do not play at anything. | |
| |
| Now, with my little gun, I crawl | 5 |
| All in the dark along the wall, | |
| And follow round the forest track | |
| Away behind the sofa back. | |
| |
| There, in the night, where none can spy, | |
| All in my hunter’s camp I lie, | 10 |
| And play at books that I have read | |
| Till it is time to go to bed. | |
| |
| These are the hills, these are the woods, | |
| These are my starry solitudes; | |
| And there the river by whose brink | 15 |
| The roaring lions come to drink. | |
| |
| I see the others far away | |
| As if in firelit camp they lay, | |
| And I, like to an Indian scout, | |
| Around their party prowled about. | 20 |
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| So, when my nurse comes in for me, | |
| Home I return across the sea, | |
| And go to bed with backward looks | |
| At my dear land of Story-books. | | | | |
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