Part 2

You’ve stolen all our mushrooms, And, if you don’t take care, We’ll go about the fields at night And paint the toadstools brown and white, And you’ll be punished for your greed By being very ill indeed— So you had best beware.

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THE FAIRIES GIVE THANKS

To all kind folk who make delightful gardens Where we may live, Enjoying days and nights of busy leisure Amid devices fashioned for our pleasure, Our thanks we give.

For dancing-lawns and gravelled jousting-places, For guardian trees, For ferny thickets strewn with moss-grown mountains And lily-pools and waterfalls and fountains— For all of these.

Charged are we also by our little comrades The gentle birds, That we their messages of thanks should bring you, Since they from grateful hearts can only sing you Songs without words.

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The author’s best thanks are due to the Editor and Proprietors of _Punch_, through whose courtesy she is able to include in this collection a number of verses which have already appeared in that paper.

PRINTED BY MORRISON AND GIBB LTD., EDINBURGH

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