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! 

Up in the air and over the wall, 
             Till I can see so wide, 
River and trees and cattle and all 
             Over the countryside—

Till I look down on the garden green, 
              Down on the roof so brown—
Up in the air I go flying again, 
              Up in the air and down!

From Breakfast on through all the day
At home among my friends I stay,
But every night I go abroad
Afar into the land of Nod.

All by myself I have to go,
With none to tell me what to do--
All alone beside the streams
And up the mountain-sides of dreams.

The strangest things are there for me,
Both things to eat and things to see,
And many frightening sights abroad
Till morning in the land of Nod.

Try as I like to find the way,
I never can get back by day,
Nor can remember plain and clear
The curious music that I hear.

In winter I get up at night  
And dress by yellow candle-light.  
In summer, quite the other way,  
I have to go to bed by day.  

I have to go to bed and see         
The birds still hopping on the tree,  
Or hear the grown-up people’s feet  
Still going past me in the street.  

And does it not seem hard to you,  
When all the sky is clear and blue,  
And I should like so much to play,  
To have to go to bed by day?

Three of us afloat in the meadow by the swing,   
  Three of us aboard in the basket on the lea.   
Winds are in the air, they are blowing in the spring,   
  And waves are on the meadow like the waves there are at sea.   
   
Where shall we adventure, to-day that we’re afloat,
  Wary of the weather and steering by a star?   
Shall it be to Africa, a-steering of the boat,   
  To Providence, or Babylon, or off to Malabar?   
   
Hi! but here’s a squadron a-rowing on the sea—   
  Cattle on the meadow a-charging with a roar!
Quick, and we’ll escape them, they’re as mad as they can be,   
  The wicket is the harbour and the garden is the shore.

If I have faltered more or less
In my great task of happiness;
If I have moved among my race
And shown no glorious morning face;
If beams from happy human eyes
Have moved me not; if morning skies,
Books, and my food, and summer rain
Knocked on my sullen heart in vain:-
Lord, thy most pointed pleasure take
And stab my spirit broad awake;
Or, Lord, if too obdurate I,
Choose thou, before that spirit die,
A piercing pain, a killing sin,
And to my dead heart run them in!

Dark brown is the river.  
  Golden is the sand.  
It flows along for ever,  
  With trees on either hand.  

Green leaves a-floating,
  Castles of the foam,  
Boats of mine a-boating—  
  Where will all come home?  

On goes the river  
  And out past the mill,  
Away down the valley,  
  Away down the hill.  

Away down the river,  
  A hundred miles or more,  
Other little children  
  Shall bring my boats ashore.