Miss Chatterbox, come here and tell
Me all about the fairies’ spell
So new to you but strange to me
Till you revive its mystery!
I, too, delight in Summer bowers
But you bewitch the birds and flowers;
I, too, rejoice in sunny nooks
But you make music of the brooks!
Miss Chatterbox, the secret share
Of all the magic of the air!
How comes the woodland’s passing breeze
To be the whisper of the trees?
How come the echoes through their screen
To be the pranks of elves unseen?—
The bushy tails and beadlike eyes
The wizard and the kewpie spies?
Miss Chatterbox, the riddle read
Of yonder fence-side hearts that bleed,
Of yonder riot in the field
Where buttercups to daisies yield;
Where drowsy sprites sip clover-sweets
And bobolink with Cupid meets;
Where brownies over on the knoll
The puff-balls of the pasture roll.
Miss Chatterbox, how happens it
That you in all this witchcraft fit;
That in your feet the fairies dance
And from your eyes the sun-sprites glance;
That in your curls are elfin kinks
And in your cheek a cupid winks;
The wood-nymphs clap their hands with thine
And thou art nature’s countersign?