Peacock Pie: A Book of Rhymes

These poems exist in the liminal space between waking and dreaming. Walter de la Mare captures what every child knows but few adults remember: the electricity of a half-heard sound, the terror and wonder of a dark garden, the way ordinary objects become enchanted when no one is watching. Peacock Pie is not simple nursery rhyme but something stranger and more luminous. Here are poems about ghosts and goblins, about children who wander into enchanted woods, about the mysterious music of bells and the slow magic of growing things. Written in 1913, this collection has lost none of its strange power to make the world feel new again. It is for readers who believe poetry should feel like a secret being whispered, or for anyone who remembers being young enough to think that shadows have intentions.