180 THE FAIRIE FERN.
Twas a wondrous world which I entered then ; I shall never tell where it lies, to men, For the Fairie Queen, ere she left me, said Revengeful pinions would beat me dead If I their haunts to the world betrayed, Or a gun should enter the sylvan shade ; But all they whistled, or said, or sung I might translate into human tongue.
A kindred city it seemed to ours,
For all its dwellings were leafy bowers,
For all its bipeds were minus boots,
Guiltless of trains or Sunday suits ;
For all they build in the selfsame way
As the birds who sang in the world s first May;
For all this, strangely familiar seemed
The wild birds chatter of which I dreamed.
Flitting in haste through the leafy street,
I heard them talk about "Bills to meet;"
Of the new "air-line that was up to par,"
And the debt which came through the "Magpie
war;" Of the "Brook-line bridge," which they did not
need ;
Of the fearful price of canary-seed ; Who should be envoy, and what the terms For the great " New Diet" that of Worms.
Sounds as of Babel filled the glen (In Bird-land banks all close at ten) :
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