FLOWER FAIRIES

Flower fairies -- have you found them,

When the summer's dusk is falling,

With the glow-worms watching round them;

Have you heard them softly calling?

Silent stand they through the noonlight,

In their flower shapes, fair and quiet;

But they hie them forth by moonlight

Ready then to sing and riot.

I have heard them; I have seem them, --

Light from their bright petals raying;

And the trees bent down to screen them,

Great, wise trees, too old for playing.

Hundreds of them, all together, --

Flashing flocks of flying fairies,

Crowding through the summer weather,

Seeking where the coolest air is.

And they tell the trees that know them,

As upon their boughs they hover,

Of the things that chance below them, ¯

How the rose has a new lover.

And the gay Rose laughs, protesting,

"Neighbour Lily is a fickle."

Then they search where birds are nesting,

And their feathers softly tickle.

Then away they all dance, sweeping,

Having drunk their fill of gladness.

But the trees, their night-watch keeping,

Thrill with tender, pitying sadness;

For their know of bleak December,

When each bough left cold and bare is, --

When they only shall remember

The bright visits of the fairies, --

When the roses and the lilies

Shall be gone, to come back never

From the land where all so still is

That they sleep and sleep for ever.