Since time immemorial we have been treated to stories about the world of fantasy, especially during our childhood.......with fairy stories, pantomimes, nursery rhymes....... But, alas for most of us this was all too soon replaced with a more matter of fact, sensible teaching, and we soon forgot how as children we used our imagination, and anything was possible. We have collected some poems about fairies, which to us are so enchanting, we would like to share them with you in the hope that they might awaken the child within!

"When the first baby laughed for the first time, the laugh broke into a thousand pieces and they went skipping about, and that was the beginning of faeries." J.M. Barrie

The Little Land Boats sail on the Rivers Dreams Beyond A Fairy Went A Marketing A Goblinade My Fairy Finding Fairies The Elf Singing The Stolen Child Some One Cobwebs

The Plumpuppets Mr Nobody The Flowers The Fairies Blind Folk see the Fairies Fairy's Wander-Songs Fairy Bread The Unseen Playmate The Fairies Have Never a Penny If you see a Faery Ring In Fairyland

The Little Land

---

When at home alone I sit
And am very tired of it,
I have just to shut my eyes
To go sailing through the skies....
To go sailing far away
To the pleasant Land of Play;
To the fairy land afar
Where the Little People are;
Where the clover-tops are trees,
And the rain-pools are the seas,
And the leaves, like little ships,
Sail about on tiny trips;
And above the Daisy tree
Through the grasses,
High o'erhead the Bumble Bee
Hums and passes.

In that forest to and fro
I can wander, I can go;
See the spider and the fly,
And the ants go marching by,
Carrying parcels with their feet
Down the green and grassy street.
I can in the sorrel sit
Where the ladybird alit.
I can climb the jointed grass
And on high
And my tiny self I see,
Painted very clear and neat
On the rain-pool at my feet.
Should a leaflet come to land
Drifting near to where I stand,
Straight I'll board that tiny boat
Round the rain-pool sea to float.

Little thoughtful creatures sit
On the grassy coasts of it;
Little things with lovely eyes
See me sailing with surprise.
Some are clad in armour green....
(These have sure to battle been!)....
Some are pied with ev'ry hue,
Black and crimson, gold and blue;
Some have wings and swift are gone....
But they all look kindly on.

When my eyes I once again
Open, and see all things plain:
High bare walls, great bare floor;
Great big knobs on drawer and door;
Great big people perched on chairs,
Stitching tucks and mending tears,
Each a hill that I could climb,
And talking nonsense all the time....
O dear me,
That I could be
A sailor on a the rain-pool sea,
A climber in the clover tree,
And just come back a sleepy-head,
Late at night to go to bed.
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
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Boats Sail on the Rivers

---

Boats Sail on the Rivers
And ships sail on the seas;
But clouds that sail across the sky
Are prettier than these.

There are bridges on the rivers,
as pretty as you please;
But the bow that bridges heaven,
And overtops the trees,
and builds a road from earth to sky,
It's prettier far than these
by
Christina Rossetti
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Dreams Beyond

---

Beyond the mountain line,
The gray stone and the boulder,
Beyond the growth of dark green pine,
That crowns its western shoulder,
There lies that fairy land of mine,
Unseen of a beholder.

Its fruits are all like rubies rare,
Its streams are clear as glasses:
There golden castles hang in air,
And purple grapes in masses,
And noble knights and ladies fair
Come riding down the passes.

Ah me! they say if I could stand
Upon those mountain ledges,
I should but see on either hand
Plain fields and dusty hedges:
And yet I know my fairy land
Lies somewhere o'er their hedges.
by
Cecil Frances Alexander
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A Fairy Went A Marketing

---

A fairy went a marketing....
She bought a little fish;
She put it in a crystal bowl
Upon a golden dish
An hour she sat in wonderment
And watched its sliver gleam,
And then gently took it up
And slipped it in a stream.

A fairy went a marketing....
She bought a winter gown
All stitched about with gossamer
And lined with thistledown.
She wore it all afternoon
With prancing and delight,
Then gave it to a little frog
To keep him warm at night.

A fairy went a marketing....
She bought a colored bird;
It sang the sweetest ,shrillest song
That she had ever heard.
She sat beside its painted cage
And listened half a day,
And then she opened wide the door
And let it fly away.

A fairy went a marketing....
She bought a gentle mouse
To take her tiny messages,
To keep her tiny house.
All day she kept its busy feet
Pit-patting to and fro,
And then she kissed its silken ears,
Thanked it, and let it go.
by
Rose Fyleman
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A Goblinade

---

A green hobgoblin
Small but quick,
Went out walking
With a black thorn stick.

He was full of mischief,
Full of glee.
He frightened all
That he could see.
He sought a little maiden
In a wood.
He looked as fierce as
A goblin should.
He crept by the hedge row,
He said "Boo!"
"Boo!" laughed the little girl,
"How are you?"

"What! said the goblin,
"Aren't you afraid?"
"I think your funny." said the maid.
"Ha!" said the goblin,
Sitting down flat
"You think I'm funny?
I don't like that."
I'm very frightening.
You should flee!"
"Your cunning" she said
Then she laughed again, and went away.
But the goblin stood there
All that day.

A beetle came by, and
"Well" it said.
But the goblin only
Shook his head.
"For I am funny."
He said to it.
"I thought I was alarming,
And I'm not a bit.

"If I'm amusing,"
He said to himself,
"I won't be a goblin
I'll be an elf!"
"For a goblin must be a goblin
All the day,
But an elf need only
Dance and play."

So the little green goblin
Became an elf.
And he dances all day, and
He likes himself.
by
Florence Page Jaques
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My Fairy

---

I have a fairy by my side
Which says I must not sleep,
When once in pain I loudly cried
It said "You must not weep."

If, full of mirth, I smile and grin,
It says "You must not laugh;"
When once I wished to drink some gin
It said "You must not quaff."

When once a meal I wished to taste
It said "You must not bite;"
When to the wars I went in haste
It said "You must not fight."

"What may I do?" at length I cried,
Tired of the painful task.
The fairy quietly replied,
And said "You must not ask."

Moral: "You mustn't."
by
Lewis Carroll
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Finding Fairies

---

When the winds of March are wakening
The crocuses and crickets,
Did you ever find a fairy near
Some budding little thickets,
A straightening her golden wings and
combing out her hair?
She's there!
And when she sees you creeping up
To get a closer peek
She tumbles through the daffodils,
A playing hide and seek,
And creeps into the tulips till
You can't find where she's hid?
Mine did!
Have you ever, ever come across
A little toadstool elf
A reading by a firefly lamp
And laughing to himself,
Or a saucy fairy queen upon
Her favorite dragonfly?
So've I!
It's fun to see a fairy flutter
Off a catkin boat,
And wrap her fairy baby in
A pussy willow coat;
Oh, don't you love the fairies
And their fairy babies, too? I do!
And the round sun rolling by
Heeding no such things as I.
by
Marjorie Barrows
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The Elf Singing

---

An elf sat on a twig,
She was not very big,
She sang a little song,
She did not think it wrong;
But she was on wizard’s ground,
Who hated all sweet sound.

Elf, Elf,
Take care of yourself,
He’s coming behind you,
To seize you and bind you
And Stifle your song.
The Wizard! The Wizard!
He’s changing his shape
In crawling along.
An ugly old ape,
A poisonous lizard,
A spotted spider
A wormy glider,
The Wizard! The Wizard!
He’s up in a bough;
He’ll bite your gizzard.
He’s close now!

The elf went on with her song,
It grew clear and more strong,
It lifted her into the air,
She floated singing away,
With rainbows in her hair;
While the wizard-worm from his creep
Made a sudden leap,
Fell down in a hole,
And, ere his magic word he could say,
Was eaten by a mole.
by
William Allingham
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The Stolen Child

---

Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water-rats;
There we've hid our fairy vats,
Full of berries
And of the reddest stolen cherries.

Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a fairy, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping
Than you can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams

Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a fairy, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping
Than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim gray sands with light,
Far off by furthest Roses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances,
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And is anxious in its sleep.

Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a fairy, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping
Than you can understand.

Away with us he's going,
The solemn eyed:
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal-chest.

For he comes, the human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a fairy, hand in hand,
From a world more full of weeping
than he can understand.
by
W.B. Yeats
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Some One

---

Some one came a knocking
At my wee, small door;
Some one came knocking,
I'm sure...sure...sure;
I listened, I opened,
I looked left and right,
But naught there was a stirring
In the still dark night;
Only busy beetle
Tap-tapping in the wall,
Only from the forest
The screech-owl's call,
Only the cricket whistling
While the dewdrops fall
So I know not who came knocking,
At all, at all, at all.
by
Walter de la Mare
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Cobwebs

---

Between me and the rising sun,
This way and that the cobwebs run;
Their myriad wavering lines of light
Dance up the hill and out of sight.

There is no land possesses half
So many lines of telegraph
As those the spider-elves have spun
Between me and the rising sun.
by
E.L.King
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The Plumpuppets

---

When little heads weary have gone to their beds,
When all the good nights and prayers have been said,
Of all the good fairies that send bairns to rest
The little Plumpuppets are those I love best.

If your pillow is lumpy, or hot, thin, and flat,
The little Plumpuppets know just what they're at:
They plump up the pillow, all soft, cool and fat....
The little plumpuppets plump-up it!

The little Plumpuppets are fairies of beds;
They have nothing to do but watch sleepyheads ;
They turn down the sheets and they tuck you in tight,
And dance on your pillow to wish you good night!

No matter what troubles have bothered the day,
Though your doll broke her arm or the pup ran away;
Though your handies are black with ink that was spilt....
Plumpuppets are waiting in blanket and quilt.

If your pillow is lumpy, or hot, thin, and flat,
The little Plumpuppets know just what they're at:
They plump up the pillow, all soft, cool and fat....
The little plumpuppets plump-up it!
by
Christopher Morley
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Mr Nobody

---

I know of a funny little man,
As quiet as is a mouse,
Who does the mischief that is done
In everybody's house!
There's no one ever seen his face,
And yet we all agree
That every plate we break was cracked
By Mr Nobody.

'Tis he who always tears our books,
Who leaves the door ajar,
He pulls the buttons from our shirts,
And scatters pins afar;
That squeaking door will always squeak,
For, prithee, don't you see,
We leave the oiling to be done
By Mr Nobody.

The finger marks upon the door
By none of us are made;
We leave the blinds unclosed
To let the curtains fade.
The ink we never spill; the boots
That lying round you see
Are not our boots...they all belong
To Mr Nobody.
by
Anonymous
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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.
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
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The Fairies

---

There are fairies at the bottom of our garden!
It's not so very, very far away;
You pass the gardener's shed and you just keep straight ahead....
I do so hope they've really come to stay.
There's a little wood, with moss in it and beetles,
And a little stream that quietly runs through;
You wouldn't think they'd dare to come merrymaking there....
Well, they do.

There are fairies at the bottom of our garden!
They often have a dance there on summer nights;
The butterflies and bees make a lovely breeze,
And the rabbits stand about to hold the lights.
Did you know that they could sit upon the moonbeams
And pick a little star to make a fan,
And dance away up there in the middle of the air?
Well, they can.

There are fairies at the bottom of our garden!
You cannot think how beautiful they are;
They all stand up and sing when the Fairy Queen and King
Come gently floating down upon their car.
The King is very proud and very handsome;
The Queen....now you can guess who that could be?
(She's a little girl all day, but at night she steals away)
Well, it's me!
by
Rose Fyleman
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Blind Folk See The Fairies

---

Blind folk see the fairies.
Oh, better far than we,
Who miss the shining of their wings
Because our eyes are filled with things
We do not wish to see.
Deaf folk hear the fairies
However soft their song;
'Tis we who lose the honey sound
Amid the clamor all around
That beats the whole day long.
by
Rose Fyleman
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Fairy's Wander-Song

---

Over hill, over dale,
Through bush, through brier,
Over park, over pale,
Through flood, through fire.
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moon's sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green.
The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats spots you see,
Those be rubies, fairy favours,
In those freckles live their savours:
I must go seek some dewdrops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.
by
William Shakespeare
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Fairy Bread

---

Come up here, O dusty feet!
Here is fairy ready to eat.
Here in my retiring room,
Children, you may dine
On the golden smell of broom
And the shade of pine;
And when you have eaten well,
Fairy stories hear and tell.
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
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The Unseen Playmate

---

When children are playing alone on the green,
In comes the playmate that never was seen.
When children are happy and lonely and good,
The Friend of the Children comes out of the wood.

Nobody heard him, and nobody saw,
His is a picture you never could draw,
But he's sure to be present, abroad or at home,
When children are happy and playing alone.

He lies in the laurels, he runs on the grass,
He sings when you tinkle the musical glass;
Whene'er you are happy and cannot tell why,
The Friend of the Children is sure to be by!

He loves to be little, he hates to be big,
'Tis he that inhabits the caves that you dig;
'Tis he when you play with your soldiers of tin
That sides with the Frenchmen and never can win.

'Tis he, when at night you go off to your bed,
Bids you go to sleep and not trouble your head;
For wherever they're lying, in cupboard or shelf,
'Tis he will take care of your playthings himself!
by
Robert Louis Stevenson
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The Fairies Have Never A Penny to Spend

---

The fairies have never a penny to spend,
They haven't a thing put by,
But theirs is the dower of bird and flower
And theirs is the earth and sky.
And though you should live in a palace of gold
Or sleep in a dried up ditch,
You could never be as poor as the fairies are,
And never as rich.

Since ever and ever the world began
They danced like a ribbon of flame,
They have sung their song through the centuries long
And yet it is never the same.
And though you be foolish or though you be wise,
With hair of silver or gold,
You can never be as young as the fairies are,
And never as old.
by
Rose Fyleman
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If You See A Faery Ring

---

If you see a faery ring
In a field of grass,
Very lightly step around,
Tip-toe as you pass,
Last night faeries frolicked there....
And they're sleeping somewhere near.
If you see a tiny faery,
Lying fast asleep
Shut your eyes
And run away,
Do not stay to peek!
Do not tell
Or you'll break a faery spell.
by
William Shakespeare
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In Fairyland

---

The fairy poet takes a sheet
Of moonbeam, silver white;
His ink is dew from daisies sweet,
His pen a point of light.
My love I know is fairer far
Than his, (though she is fair,)
And we should dwell where fairies are,
For I could praise her there.
by
Joyce Kilme
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