My mother is a queen and my father is a king
And I have a garden with pretty birds that sing,
Where pansies and marigolds and hollyhocks grow
And four little apple-trees planted in a row.
My father is a king and my mother is a queen
And I have a little page dressed all in green,
A treasure-mine in Barbary, an orange-grove in Spain,
And a little brown monkey on a long gold chain.
“Blow out the light,” they said, they said
(She’d got to the very last page);
“Blow out the light,” they said, they said,
“It’s dreadfully wicked to read in bed”;
Her eyes grew black and her face grew red
And she blew in a terrible rage.
She put out the moon, she did, she did,
So frightfully hard she blew,
She put out the moon, she did, she did;
Over the sky the darkness slid,
The stars all scuttled away and hid—
(A very wise thing to do).
But please don’t whisper the tale about,
She’d get into trouble, she would;
Please don’t whisper the tale about,
If anyone else should ever find out
She’d get into trouble without a doubt,
And now she’s ever so good.
I like to wear my party frock
That Auntie bought in town,
My patent shoes with shiny toes,
My Sunday hat with little bows,
And ribbons hanging down.
I like to hear the people say:
“How pretty Nancy looks to-day!”
But Daddy shakes his head and says:
“You’ll make her very vain.”
And Grannie says: “She should be dressed
In everything that’s of the best
But rather neat and plain.”
And Mother says: “My goodness me!
Who can this lovely lady be?”
I shall be a lady
As pretty as you please,
And I shall have a garden
With lots of flowers and trees,
A pretty little kitchen
With rows of shining pots,
A hothouse full of peaches
And a nursery full of cots.
Some days are fairy days. The minute that you wake
You have a magic feeling that you never could mistake;
You may not see the fairies, but you know that they’re about,
And any single minute they might all come popping out;
You want to laugh, you want to sing, you want to dance and run,
Everything is different, everything is fun;
The sky is full of fairy clouds, the streets are fairy ways—
Anything might happen on truly fairy days.
Some nights are fairy nights. Before you go to bed
You hear their darling music go chiming in your head;
You look into the garden, and through the misty grey
You see the trees all waiting in a breathless kind of way.
All the stars are smiling; they know that very soon
The fairies will come singing from the land behind the moon.
If only you could keep awake when Nurse puts out the light...
Anything might happen on a truly fairy night.
Bunny, bunny, smooth your fur,
Wash your little face;
Dormouse, wake you up and stir
Lest you lose your place.
Hasten, squirrel, don’t be shy—
The Queen is coming by.
Linnets, wrens, be ready, please,
With your sweetest notes,
Perch among the waiting trees,
Tune your tiny throats.
Skylark, won’t you leave the sky?
The Queen is coming by.
Goblins, stop your naughty tricks,
Hold yourselves in wait;
Witches, raise your besom sticks
For an arch of state.
Quickly, fairies, hither fly—
The Queen is coming by.
They took me out a-sailing—
The boat was made of glass;
We sailed upon the little clouds,
The stars came out in shining crowds
So thick we scarce could pass.
But feather-light through all the night
About the sky we sped;
There were no oars with which to row,
There was no tiniest wind to blow
Though all the sails were spread.
They took me out a-sailing—
We anchored by the moon;
The golden door was open wide,
We saw a garden-ground inside
Where it was light as noon.
And fairy folk looked out and spoke:
“Come in, come in and play!”
We climbed a little silver stair—
It was so beautiful in there
I wished that I might stay.
They took me out a-sailing—
Oh, strange the tales I heard
Of charmed adventures in the skies
Beyond the gaze of human eyes,
Beyond the flight of bird.
The stars went out, I looked about,
I saw the dewdrops gleam
Among the cobwebs on the lawn
As we came home at break of dawn...
It was not all a dream.
You’ve stolen all our mushrooms!
When friends come in to tea
In Fairyland it is the rule
To offer them a satin stool;
The grass is often very wet
And furniture is hard to get,
As you must all agree.
You’ve stolen all our mushrooms
And left not one behind.
If people came by night and day
And took your prettiest chairs away
And made them all into a stew
Without so much as thanking you,
Now would you call it kind?
You’ve stolen all our mushrooms,
And, if you don’t take care,
We’ll go about the fields at night
And paint the toadstools brown and white,
And you’ll be punished for your greed
By being very ill indeed—
So you had best beware.
To all kind folk who make delightful gardens
Where we may live,
Enjoying days and nights of busy leisure
Amid devices fashioned for our pleasure,
Our thanks we give.
For dancing-lawns and gravelled jousting-places,
For guardian trees,
For ferny thickets strewn with moss-grown mountains
And lily-pools and waterfalls and fountains—
For all of these.
Charged are we also by our little comrades
The gentle birds,
That we their messages of thanks should bring you,
Since they from grateful hearts can only sing you
Songs without words.
The author’s best thanks are due to the Editor and
Proprietors of Punch, through whose courtesy she
is able to include in this collection a number of
verses which have already appeared in that paper.
PRINTED BY MORRISON AND GIBB LTD., EDINBURGH
Transcriber’s Notes
- A stanza break was inserted at the start of page 25 before "But ere the morning has well begun"
- Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.
- Typographical errors were silently corrected.
- Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only when a predominant form was found in this book.