The Land of Counterpane Lyrics
A child ill in bed turns the pillows into hills, the sheets into seas and the toys into soldiers, ships and cities, and rules the whole land as a giant. Robert Louis Stevenson wrote it for his 1885 collection, A Child's Garden of Verses.
The Land of Counterpane
When I was sick and lay a-bed,
I had two pillows at my head,
And all my toys beside me lay,
To keep me happy all the day.
And sometimes for an hour or so
I watched my leaden soldiers go,
With different uniforms and drills,
Among the bed-clothes, through the hills;
And sometimes sent my ships in fleets
All up and down among the sheets;
Or brought my trees and houses out,
And planted cities all about.
I was the giant great and still
That sits upon the pillow-hill,
And sees before him, dale and plain,
The pleasant land of counterpane.
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/the-land-of-counterpane/
- Type
- Poems for Children
- Written by
- Robert Louis Stevenson
- Tune
- Read quietly, as a story told from a sickbed
- Best for ages
- 3 to 9 years
What Does The Land of Counterpane Mean?
The speaker is ill, with two pillows and a bed full of toys, and the days are long. Instead of complaining, the child invents a country. Leaden soldiers march with different uniforms and drills through the bedclothes and the hills. Ships sail in fleets "up and down among the sheets". Trees and houses come out of the toy box and are planted as cities. At the end the child becomes the giant, great and still, sitting on the pillow-hill and looking down over the dale and plain of the counterpane.
A counterpane is an old word for a bedspread. Leaden soldiers are toy soldiers cast in lead, a soft metal; they are only toys here, and the poem has no fighting. Drills are the marching exercises of soldiers, and a dale is a valley.
The idea is a comforting one for a child at home with a cold or a long illness: lying still does not stop the imagination from travelling. It is also a good model for a small imaginary world made on a blanket.
History and Origin
Robert Louis Stevenson was born in Edinburgh in 1850 and died on the island of Samoa in 1894. He is best known for the adventure story Treasure Island (1883), and he wrote Kidnapped and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in 1886. His children's collection, A Child's Garden of Verses, was published in 1885. It is written from a child's point of view, in short, plain poems about play, bedtime, gardens and travel.
Stevenson was often ill as a child and spent many days in bed. The book is dedicated to his nurse, Alison Cunningham, with the line "As made my childish days rejoice!"
Learning Activities
- Build a counterpane land: on a bed or sofa, make hills from pillows and a sea from a blue blanket, then add toy ships and houses.
- Be the giant: sit very still and look down at the land, and tell a grown-up what can be seen from up there.
- Sick-day kit: make a small box of toys and drawing things kept for days spent in bed.
- Read it for a sick day: keep this poem for the days a child has to rest, and ask what country they would invent.