Today is Boy the Younger’s birthday and he is nine. He is also more excited than the most excited thing imaginable, so I have briefly escaped to The Bunker for a moment’s peace. This poem is a good example of how he plays when he’s at his best.
Block City – by R L Stevenson (1850-1894)
What are you able to build with your blocks?
Castles and palaces, temples and docks.
Rain may keep raining, and others go roam,
But I can be happy and building at home.
Let the sofa be mountains, the carpet be sea,
There I’ll establish a city for me:
A kirk and a mill and a palace beside,
And a harbour as well where my vessels may ride.
Great is the palace with pillar and wall,
A sort of a tower on the top of it all,
And steps coming down in an orderly way
To where my toy vessels lie safe in the bay.
This one is sailing and that one is moored:
Hark to the song of the sailors on board!
And see on the steps of my palace, the kings
Coming and going with presents and things!
Yet as I saw it, I see it again,
The kirk and the palace, the ships and the men,
And as long as I live, and where’er I may be,
I’ll always remember my town by the sea.
Now I have done with it, down let it go!
All in a moment the town is laid low.
Block upon block lying scattered and free,
What is there left of my town by the sea?
That’s a new one on me – rather spiffing I feel.
Happy birthday BTY!
Toffeeapple: It was Lady Marjorie who reminded me about this book, ‘A Child’s Garden of Verses’. I have a 1925 edition illustrated by A H Watson and it is quite enchanting.
Vinogirl: Thank you. He has had a lovely day, lots of presents, enough cake to make us all feel slightly sick and I was poked in the eye with the sharp end of a cricket stump. What more could a chap want?
Sounds like the perfect Birthday for a 9 year old!
Glad he, and you, enjoyed it. It’s OK, once in a special while to OD on good cake! Hope the poke in the eye is nothing serious.
I’ve always thought parents should be able to buy something like “face insurance”! I got poked in the eye once by my one-year-old (now 25) and he managed to scratch the cornea–ouch! Happy Day to BTY!