Historical Associations

Dear Uncle Jim, this garden ground, / That now you smoke your pipe around, / Has seen immortal actions done / And valiant battles lost and won.

Here we had best on tip-toe tread, / While I for safety march ahead, / For this is that enchanted ground / Where all who loiter slumber sound.

Here is the sea, here is the sand, / Here is simple Shepherd's Land, / Here are the fairy hollyhocks, / And there are Ali Baba's rocks.

But yonder, see! apart and high, / Frozen Siberia lies; where I, / With Robert Bruce and William Tell, / Was bound by an enchanter's spell.