Garden Days
by Robert Louis Stevenson

Dear Uncle Jim, This garden ground That now you smoke your pipe around, Has seen immortal actions done And valiant battles lost and won. Here we had best on tip-toe tread, While I, for safety, march ahead, For this is that enchanted ground Where all who loiter slumber sound. Here is the sea, here is the sand, Here is the simple Shepherd's Land, Here are the fairy hollyhocks, And there are Ali Baba's rocks. But yonder, see! apart and high, Frozen Siberia lies; where I, With Robert Bruce William Tell, Was bound by an enchanter's spell. There, then, awhile in chains we lay, In wintry dungeons, far from day; But ris'n at length, with might and main, Our iron fettersburst in twain. Then all the horns were blown in town; And to the ramparts clanging down, All the giants leaped to horse And charged behind us through the gorse. On we rode, the others and I, Over the mountains blue and by The Silver River, the sounding sea, And the robber woods of Tartary. A thousand miles we galloped fast, And down the witches lane we passed, And rode amain, with brandished sword, Up to the middle, through the ford. Last we drew rein--a weary three-- Upon the lawn, in time for tea, And from our steeds alighted down Before the gates of Babylon.