There’s a forest thro’ which we went to-day,
Waving and green and high,
With feathery tassels tall and gay
Nodding against the sky;
The place of all others for fairy tales,
And plays of the years gone by.
And this is the game we children played—
I was an Ogre grim,
Alice the Princess that fell asleep
Down in the forest dim,
And the Prince who wakened her with a kiss
When he found her—that was Jim.
The Prince came riding so proud and bold
On a prancing corn-stalk steed,
And many a blade was thrust at him,
But little did Jimmy heed;
And long vines plucked him to hold him back
From doing that daring deed.
The Ogre leaped from its hiding-place,
With a menace fierce and grim,
And a big green pumpkin kept the door,
And scowled and leered at him;
But he bravely charged and routed his foes
With his trusty “Cherry-Limb.”
The corn-blades dropped on their bended joints,
But vainly for mercy pled,
The pumpkin yielded, the Ogre turned
With a horrible shriek and fled,
The Princess was duly kissed, and so
Sweet Alice and Jim were wed.