A FAIRY TALE On court, hélas! après la vérité; -VOLTAIRE. URLED in a maze of dolls and bricks, CUR I find Miss Mary, ætat six, Blonde, blue-eyed, frank, capricious, Absorbed in her first fairy book, From which she scarce can pause to look, Because it's "so delicious!" "Such marvels, too. A wondrous Boat, In which they cross a magic Moat, That's smooth as glass to row onA Cat that brings all kinds of things; And see, the Queen has angel wingsThen OGRE comes "-and so on. What trash it is! How sad to find (Dear Moralist!) the childish mind, Rejecting themes in which you mix In merest prudence men should teach Are painful contradictions; That science ranks as monstrous things Two pairs of upper limbs; so wingsE'en angels' wings!-are fictions; That there's no giant now but Steam; That life, although "an empty dream," Is scarce a "land of Fairy." "Of course I said all this? Why, no; I did a thing far wiser, though,— I read the tale with Mary. How OW shall I sing you, Child, for whom Or how the only tone assume What rocks there are on either hand! You should grow up with quite a grand How shall I then be shamed, undone, Your eyes must greet that luckless One Who o'er your "helpless cradle" bent, And twanged his tiresome instrument Nay, let my words be so discreet, Let others wish you mere good looks,- Or to be writ in Fortune's books,- I wish you but a heart that's kind, A joy of life, a frank delight; And if you fail to find a Knight- ΜΙ HOUSEHOLD ART INE be a cot," for the hours of play, Of the kind that is built by Miss GREEN- Where the walls are low, and the roofs are red, And do nought in the world (but Work) by halves, O Art of the Household! Men may prate Of their ways "intense" and Italianate,— They may soar on their wings of sense, and float To the au delà and the dim remote, Till the last sun sink in the last-lit West, 'Tis the Art at the Door that will please the best; To the end of Time 'twill be still the same, For the Earth first laughed when the children came! |