Counterpane

The last time I was home sick I was going through one of the many notebooks that I have been compiling through the years. This notebook is filled with favorite quotations, passages from books that I love and poems. One poem that always reminds me of being sick as a child is The Land of Counterpane by Robert Louis Stevenson. I was sick a lot as a child and this is one of the poems that my mother and grandmother used to read to me. I can't read this poem without thinking of being so sick with my asthma, but still feeling safe and snuggly warm.

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.

Robert Louis Stevenson

I don't think you ever get to old to hear that.