The Elder's Fairy Book
THE ELDERS' FAIRY BOOK
SOME are, who for lost regions of enchantment sigh,
Lamenting still their infancy's loved pilgrimages
Through realms where even beans grew normally league-high,
Where forests, scorning quite Dame Nature's sober stages,
Upsprang full-leafed at witch's dictate or at mage's.
But he no vegetable marvel lacks who reads,
When first a vagrant wind the swelling spring presages,
The elders' fairy book, Blank's Catalogue of Seeds!
And sentimental souls have longings that ne'er die,
For pink-pranked garden spaces, bosky pasturages,
For lilied fountains with sweet, dusky arbors nigh,
For stingless bees, and birds that love their pretty cages,
For blooms defying blight and autumn's windy rages.
Ah, Arcady, forgot, rejected of dull creeds,
One volume still revives thee and thine appanages—
The elders' fairy book, Blank's Catalogue of Seeds!
And ye who mourn the Perfect State, which, with rapt eye,
In youth ye visioned, where no sordid thought of wages,
But zeal alone drove men in useful works to vie;
Where rich and poor at last were one, all surplusages
Apportioned justly by impartial, selfless sages—
Here, lithographed, behold what your bright dream exceeds—
Snug cots, trim lawns, neat, smiling toilers of all ages—
The elders' fairy book, Blank's Catalogue of Seeds!
ENVOY
Prince, here, is balm that each successive grief assuages
As dream by dream Utopia gradually recedes—
To win the vision back, we need but con these pages—
This elders' fairy book, Blank's Catalogue of Seeds!
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1933, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 90 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse