My Kingdom

Robert Louis Stevenson · 1885

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

32 content lines · 188 words · Est. recitation about 1 min 51 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.

My Kingdom

  Down by a shining water well
  I found a very little dell,
       No higher than my head.
  The heather and the gorse about
  In summer bloom were coming out,
       Some yellow and some red.

  I called the little pool a sea;
  The little hills were big to me;
       For I am very small.
  I made a boat, I made a town,
  I searched the caverns up and down,
       And named them one and all.

  And all about was mine, I said,
  The little sparrows overhead,
       The little minnows too.
  This was the world and I was king;
  For me the bees came by to sing,
       For me the swallows flew.

  I played there were no deeper seas,
  Nor any wider plains than these,
       Nor other kings than me.
  At last I heard my mother call
  Out from the house at evenfall,
       To call me home to tea.

  And I must rise and leave my dell,
  And leave my dimpled water well,
       And leave my heather blooms.
  Alas! and as my home I neared,
  How very big my nurse appeared.
       How great and cool the rooms!


                                            IV