Vermont Dead Line: F is for FAIRY

Friday's are a perfect day for a whimsical blog post. Wishing you a wonderful weekend!

When I sound the fairy call,

Gather here in silent meeting,

Chin to knee on the orchard wall,

Cooled with dew and cherries eating.

Merry, merry, Take a cherry

Mine are sounder, Mine are rounder

Mine are sweeter, For the eater

When the dews fall. And you'll be fairies all.

~Robert Graves, "Cherry-Time," Fairies and Fusiliers, 1918

Soft moss a downy pillow makes, and green leaves spread a tent,

Where Faerie fold may rest and sleep until their night is spent.

The bluebird sings a lullaby, the firefly gives a light,

The twinkling stars are candles bright, Sleep, Faeries all, Good Night.

~Elizabeth T. Dillingham, "A Faery Song"

Bring the buds of the hazel-copse,

Where two lovers kissed at noon;

Bring the crushed red wild-thyme tops

Where they murmured under the moon....

~Alfred Noyes, "A Spell (An Excellent Way to get a Fairy)

The fairies went from the world, dear,

Because men's hearts grew cold:

And only the eyes of children see

What is hidden from the old...

~Kathleen Foyle

When the winds of March are wakening the crocuses and crickets,

Did you ever find a fairy near some budding little thickets,...

And when she sees you creeping up to get a closer peek

She tumbles through the daffodils, a playing hide and seek.

~Marjorie Barrows

The fairy poet takes a sheet

Of moonbeam, silver white;

His ink is dew from daisies sweet,

His pen a point of light.

~Joyce Kilmer

She who sits by haunted well,

Is subject to the Nixies’ spell;

She who walks on lonely beach

To the Mermaid’s charmed speech;

She who walks round ring of green,

Offends the peevish Fairy Queen;

And she who takes rest in the dwarfie’s cave,

A weary weird of who shall have.

~Sir Walter Scott

Faeries, come take me out of this dull world,

For I would ride with you upon the wind,

Run on the top of the dishevelled tide,

And dance upon the mountains like a flame.

~William Butler Yeats, "The Land of Heart's Desire," 1894

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.

~Rose Fyleman

Fays and fairies haste away!

This is Harriet's holiday:

Bring the lyre, and bring the lute,

Bring the sweetly-breathing flute;

Wreaths of cowslips hither bring,

All the honours of the spring;

Adorn the grot with all that's gai,

Fays and fairies haste away

Bring the vine to Bacchus dear,

Bring the purple lilac here,

Festoons of roses, sweetest flower,

The yellow primrose of the bower,

Blue-ey'd violets wet with dew,

Bring the clustering woodbine too

Bring the baskets made of rush,

The cherry with it's ripen'd blush,

The downy peach, so soft so fair,

The luscious grap, the mellow pear:

These to Harriet hither bring,

And sweetly in return she'll sing

Be the brilliant grotto scene

The palace of the Fairy Queen

Form the sprightly circling dance,

Fairies here your steps advance;

To harp's soft dulcet sound

Let your footsteps lightly bound

Unveil your forms to mortal eye;

Let Harriet view your revelry

~ F.D. Browne-Hemans, Invocation to the Fairies

Oh! where do fairies hide their heads,

When snow lies on the hills,

When frost has spoiled their mossy beds,

And crystallized their rills?

~Thomas Haynes Bayly

Are those the magic fairy wands

glistening on the tree

or only winter icicles that I see?

~Author Unknown

Buttercups in the sunshine look like little cups of gold.

Perhaps the Faeries come to drink the raindrops that they hold.

~Elizabeth T. Dillingham, "A Faery Song"

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.

~Rose Fyleman

Tho' ye be mortal, I can see.

A kindred spirit dwells in thee.

I doff me hat, extend me hand.

Come linger with me in faeryland.

Carla J. Nelson

I believe in everything until it's disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it's in your mind. Who's to say that dreams and nightmares aren't as real as the here and now? ~John Lennon

If we opened our minds to enjoyment, we might find tranquil pleasures spread about us on every side. We might live with the angels that visit us on every sunbeam, and sit with the fairies who wait on every flower. ~Samuel Smiles

[W]hen the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies. And now when every new baby is born its first laugh becomes a fairy. So there ought to be one fairy for every boy or girl. ~James Matthew Barrie, Peter Pan

The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve; lovers to bed; 'tis almost fairy time. ~William Shakespeare

See them dancing, dancing,

While the silver moon

Tips their swiftly glancing

Little silver shoon!

Tripping, tripping lightly

Where their footprints fall.

Look! the grass is brightly

Growing green and tall!

Springing close, unbroken

In a fairy ring!

For tomorrow's token

Of their frolicking!

~Evaleen Stein

Child Songs of Cheer - 1918

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery hand in hand,

For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

~William Butler Yeats, "The Stolen Child"

We the Fairies, blithe and antic,

Of dimensions not gigantic,

Though the moonshine mostly keep us,

Oft in orchards frisk and peep us.

~Thomas Randolph

No child but must remember laying his head in the grass, staring into the infinitesimal forest and seeing it grow populous with fairy armies. ~Robert Louis Stevenson