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 soI watched my leaden soldiers go,With different uniforms and drills,Among the bed-clothes, through the hills;
And sometimes sent my ships in fleetsAll up and down among the sheets;Or brought my trees and houses out,And planted cities all about.
I was the giant great and stillThat sits upon the pillow-hill,And sees before him, dale and plain,The pleasant land of counterpane.
Words in this poem
- counterpane n.
- A coverlet for a bed, -- originally stitched or woven in squares or figures. [See Counterpoint, corrupted into counterpane, from the employment of pane-shaped figures in these coverlets.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Land of Counterpane is in the public domain. This text is taken from A Child's Garden of Verses, Project Gutenberg ebook #136; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Robert Louis Stevenson, The Land of Counterpane, in A Child's Garden of Verses (1885), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #136, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/stevenson-childs-garden/the-land-of-counterpane.html, id L07188.
Form and metre
The Land of Counterpane is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%). 99% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 19% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 AABB bedA · headA · layB · dayB
- 2 AABB soA · goA · drillsB · hillsB
- 3 AABB fleetsA · sheetsA · outB · aboutB
- 4 AABB stillA · hillA · plainB · counterpaneB
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| When I was sick and lay a-bed, | 8 | ········ |
| I had two pillows at my head, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And all my toys beside me lay, | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| To keep me happy all the day. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And sometimes for an hour or so | 8 | ·/···/·· |
| I watched my leaden soldiers go, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| With different uniforms and drills, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Among the bed-clothes, through the hills; | 8 | ········ |
| And sometimes sent my ships in fleets | 8 | ·˘/····· |
| All up and down among the sheets; | 8 | ········ |
| Or brought my trees and houses out, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And planted cities all about. | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| I was the giant great and still | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| That sits upon the pillow-hill, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And sees before him, dale and plain, | 8 | ········ |
| The pleasant land of counterpane. | 8 | ·/˘··/˘˘ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.