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Home  »  The World’s Best Poetry  »  A Good Play

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.

Poems of Home: II. For Children

A Good Play

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894)

WE built a ship upon the stairs

All made of the back-bedroom chairs,

And filled it full of sofa pillows

To go a-sailing on the billows.

We took a saw and several nails,

And water in the nursery pails;

And Tom said, “Let us also take

An apple and a slice of cake;”—

Which was enough for Tom and me

To go a-sailing on, till tea.

We sailed along for days and days,

And had the very best of plays;

But Tom fell out and hurt his knee,

So there was no one left but me.