THE PIPER
YOU laid your slender fingers,
Your fingers long and brown,
Upon the pipes, and lured me
Far from the stolid town.
You piped me to the greenwood,
And there, when grace was said,
We brake and ate together
The fairy’s secret bread.
Oh then my ears were opened
And magically I heard
The small leaves talk together,
The gossip of a bird.
Bewitched? There is no telling:
But always, till I’m dead,
I’ll hear your silver piping
And eat your fairy bread.