My Treasures Lyrics
A child lists four treasures kept in a private corner: nuts picked with the nurse, a whistle the nurse made from a branch, a stone that may be gold, and a real carpenter's chisel, which is the best of all.
My Treasures
These nuts, that I keep in the back of the nest,
Where all my tin soldiers are lying at rest,
Were gathered in Autumn by nursie and me
In a wood with a well by the side of the sea.
This whistle we made (and how clearly it sounds!)
By the side of a field at the end of the grounds.
Of a branch of a plane, with a knife of my own,
It was nursie who made it, and nursie alone!
The stone, with the white and the yellow and grey,
We discovered I cannot tell HOW far away;
And I carried it back although weary and cold,
For though father denies it, I'm sure it is gold.
But of all my treasures the last is the king,
For there's very few children possess such a thing;
And that is a chisel, both handle and blade,
Which a man who was really a carpenter made.
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/my-treasures/
- Type
- Poems for Children
- Written by
- Robert Louis Stevenson
- Tune
- Proud and a little breathless, like someone showing a collection
- Best for ages
- 4 to 9 years
What Does My Treasures Mean?
Each treasure comes with a small story. The nuts were picked in autumn with nursie, the child's nurse, in a wood. The whistle was made by nursie from a branch of a plane, a large tree with patchy bark. The stone is white, yellow and grey, and the child is sure it is gold even though father says otherwise. Children, then and now, love a shiny stone.
The chisel is the "king" of the treasures because it is not a toy. A chisel is a tool with a flat, sharp blade for cutting wood, and this one was made by someone who really was a carpenter. A real tool is a serious thing for a child to own, which is why it outranks the rest. The tin soldiers "lying at rest" are toy soldiers made of tin, kept in the same corner.
History and Origin
Stevenson's children's poems came out in 1885 in a book dedicated to his own nurse, Alison Cunningham. This one gives a nurse the credit for two of the four treasures.
Learning Activities
- Treasure box: let the child collect four small safe treasures, such as a stone, a feather, a leaf and a button, and say who found each one.
- Tell the story: ask where each treasure came from, as the poem does, and who helped find it.
- Real or pretend gold: look at a shiny stone with a magnifying glass and talk about what makes something valuable.
- Safe tool talk: with an adult, look at a picture of a chisel and a hammer and ask what a carpenter makes with them.