The Land of Counterpane

I fell in love with the writings of Robert Louis Stevenson

when I was still in elementary school.

My aunt had given my brother A Child's Garden of Verses,

a collection of Stevenson's poetry first published in 1885,

and I read it cover to cover.

His poems seemed to easily capture childhood exuberance.

In "The Swing":

How do you like to go up in a swing

Up in the air so blue

Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing

Ever a child can do.

In another rhyme, he wrote:

The world is so full of a number of things

I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.

But today, with my husband and I both down with the flu,

Stevenson's poem "Land of Counterpane" has come to mind:

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 ... .

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.

Starting out the new year sick in bed isn't what I had in mind.

But when at the lowest, 

up is the only direction left.

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