Been taking a copy of here for a fairy.’”
There is a thrill of adventure in the true tale of a child that took an adder for a “fine grey bird”, and shared with it, in perfect fearlessness, his breakfast of bread and milk; children laugh over the odd choice of the little Creole who saw a crowd of dancing chimney sweepers on a May morning, thought they were his fellow countrymen, and became ambitious for a sooty coat. These stories could have been told as well in prose; but the charming fancy called “The Desert” is a feast of the nursery muse:
“With the apples and the plums
Little Carolina comes,
At the time of the dessert she
Comes and drops her last new curt’sy;
Graceful curt’sy, practis’d o’er
In the nursery before.
What shall we compare her to?