THE FLOWERS

ALL the names I know from nurse:

Gardener’s garters, Shepherd’s purse,

Bachelor’s buttons, Lady’s smock,

And the Lady Hollyhock.

 

Fairy places, fairy things,

Fairy woods where the wild bee wings,

Tiny trees for tiny dames—

These must all be fairy names!

 

Tiny woods below whose boughs

Shady fairies weave a house;

Tiny tree-tops, rose or thyme,

Where the braver fairies climb!

 

Fair are grown-up people’s trees,

But the fairest woods are these;

Where if I were not so tall,

I should live for good and all.

--- Robert Louis Stevenson