Foreign Lands Lyrics
Up a cherry tree, a child holds the trunk, looks out over the next garden, the river and the dusty roads, and imagines that a higher tree would show the sea, the ships and a fairy land. Five verses by Robert Louis Stevenson show how a short climb can seem like a journey.
Foreign Lands
Up into the cherry tree
Who should climb but little me?
I held the trunk with both my hands
And looked abroad in 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.
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/foreign-lands/
- Type
- Poems for Children
- Written by
- Robert Louis Stevenson
- Tune
- Read with growing wonder, and a lift on the last verse
- Best for ages
- 4 to 9 years
What Does Foreign Lands Mean?
The title promises faraway countries, but what the child actually sees is close to home. From the cherry tree there is the garden next door, "adorned with flowers", the river rippling below ("dimpling" means covered in small ripples), which acts as the sky's blue looking-glass, and the dusty roads with people tramping along them. Everything is ordinary, and everything looks new from up there.
The last two verses are the dream. A higher tree would show farther and farther, to "where the grown-up river slips into the sea among the ships", and to the roads that lead on into fairy land, where "all the children dine at five and all the playthings come alive". The grown-up river is the one near the house, grown larger as it nears the sea.
The poem has its own joke: "looked abroad in foreign lands" uses the word abroad to mean out and far away, so the child is abroad without leaving the garden. Every pair of lines rhymes: tree and me, hands and lands, lie and eye, more and before, and so on.
It is a good poem for explaining imagination: nothing in it is false, but the last lines go beyond the horizon.
History and Origin
Stevenson published the poem in 1885. As a grown man he did travel far from the Scottish garden of his childhood: he crossed to the United States, sailed the Pacific, and settled in Samoa, where he is buried.
Learning Activities
- Look-out spot: climb to the top of a hill, or look from an upstairs window with a grown-up, and list five things that you can see from there but not from the ground.
- Draw the next verse: draw what a higher tree would show, such as the sea and the ships.
- Fairy-land map: sketch the roads that lead into the fairy land where the children dine at five.
- Pretend travel: choose one ordinary view and give it a faraway name, as the poem does.