XV

AUNTIE'S SKIRTS

HENEVER Auntie moves around,

WH

Her dresses make a curious sound;
They trail behind her up the floor,
And trundle after through the door.

C 2

XVI

THE LAND OF COUNTERPANE

WHEN

HEN 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.

;

F

XVII

THE LAND OF NOD

ROM breakfast on through all the day
At home among my friends I stay;

But every night I go abroad

Afar into the land of Nod.

All by myself I have to go,

With none to tell me what to do

All alone beside the streams

And up the mountain-sides of dreams.

The strangest things are there for me,
Both things to eat and things to see,
And many frightening sights abroad
Till morning in the land of Nod.

Try as I like to find the way,
I never can get back by day,
Nor can remember plain and clear

The curious music that I hear.

XVIII

I

MY SHADOW

HAVE a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can

see.

He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head; And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.

The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to growNot at all like proper children, which is always very slow; For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber ball, And he sometimes gets so little that there's none of him at all.

He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play,
And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.
He stays so close beside me, he's a coward you can see ;
I'd think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks
to me !

One morning, very early, before the sun was up,

I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup; But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head, Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.

XIX

SYSTEM

E

VERY night my prayers I say,

And get my dinner every day; And every day that I've been good, I get an orange after food.

The child that is not clean and neat, With lots of toys and things to eat, He is a naughty child, I'm sure— Or else his dear papa is poor.