All night long and every night,
When my mamma puts out the light,
I see the people marching by,
As plain as day, before my eye.

Armies and emperors and kings,
All carrying different kinds of things,
And marching in so grand a way,
You never saw the like by day.

So fine a show was never seen
At the great circus on the green;
For every kind of beast and man
Is marching in that caravan.

At first they move a little slow
But still the faster on they go,
And still beside them close I keep
Until we reach the town of sleep.

— Robert Louis Stevenson, A Child’s Garden of Verses