Historical Associations

Robert Louis Stevenson · 1885

Catalog grade guidance: K–5 — Short children’s lyric; good for early memorization and reading aloud.

19 content lines · 101 words · Est. recitation about 1 min 3 sec (approx.)

Public-domain text for reading and recitation practice. Source: Project Gutenberg #136.Estimated time uses ~120 words/minute plus short pauses—not a contest rule.

Historical Associations

  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 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 and William Tell,
  Was bound by an enchanter's spell.




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