# Foreign Lands

- Source: A Child's Garden of Verses (child-garden.gutenberg.org), Public domain, Robert Louis Stevenson, 1885; pictures by Jessie Willcox Smith, 1905; via Project Gutenberg
- Reading level: Grades 1 and 2
- Subjects: Poems, Nature
- Topics: before, farther, foreign, lands, river, roads
- Length: 124 words, about 1 min
- Original: <https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/25609/pg25609-images.html>
- Page: <https://sprout.rootsofreason.org/r/child-garden/s-13-foreign-lands>
- Open in Sprouts: <https://sprout.rootsofreason.org/?read=child-garden/s-13-foreign-lands>

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Up into the cherry tree  
Who should climb but little me?  
I held the trunk with both my hands  
And looked abroad on foreign lands.

I saw the next door garden lie,  
Adorned with flowers, before my eye,  
And many pleasant places more  
That I had never seen before.

I saw the dimpling river pass  
And be the sky's blue looking-glass;  
The dusty roads go up and down  
With people tramping in to town.

If I could find a higher tree  
Farther and farther I should see,  
To where the grown-up river slips  
Into the sea among the ships,

To where the roads on either hand  
Lead onward into fairy land,  
Where all the children dine at five,  
And all the playthings come alive.

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## Picture credits

- Jessie Willcox Smith, Public domain (<https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/25609/pg25609-images.html>)
- Jessie Willcox Smith, Public domain (<https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/25609/pg25609-images.html>)