My Kingdom Lyrics
A child finds a tiny hollow with a pool and calls it a whole kingdom, with a sea, a town and caverns to explore. At tea time the child goes home, and the house and the nurse suddenly look enormous.
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!
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/my-kingdom/
- Type
- Poems for Children
- Written by
- Robert Louis Stevenson
- Tune
- Dreamy and unhurried, slowing at the last verse
- Best for ages
- 4 to 9 years
What Does My Kingdom Mean?
The whole poem is about size. A dell is a small hollow in the ground with plants around it, "no higher than my head". The child is small enough that a little pool is a sea, little hills are mountains and a gap in the earth is a cavern. Heather and gorse are wild moorland plants, one with small purple or pink flowers and the other with yellow ones and prickles.
The last verse gives the poem its twist. When the child is called in at evenfall (evening) for tea, going back to the house makes everything look larger: the nurse, who looked after the child, now seems very big, and the rooms are "great and cool". Coming indoors makes the child feel small again, which is what happens when a pretend world gives way to the real one.
History and Origin
Stevenson published the poem in 1885, in a book of verse written from the point of view of a child at play. Heather and gorse grow on the hillsides and moors of Scotland, the country Stevenson came from.
Learning Activities
- Make a kingdom: in a garden bed, a sandpit or a tray, build a small world with a puddle for a sea and twigs for trees.
- Name the places: let the child give names to each hill, cave and lake, as the poem does.
- Big and small: ask what looks small outside and big inside, and why the nurse looked bigger at the end.
- Call home to tea: end the game with an adult calling, and let the child say goodbye to the kingdom.