Foreign Lands
Reading Comprehension Activity
Author: Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson was a poet as well as a novelist and travel book writer. His beloved children’s poetry book, “A Child’s Garden of Verses,” has delighted old and young alike since its publication in 1885. Students will read one of the poems and answer questions on the rhyme, the language, and the details of the poem.
Topic(s): Realistic Fiction. Skill(s): Theme, Summary, Rhythm & Rhyme. Genre(s): Poetry
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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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