The Light-hearted Fairy
Oh, who is so merry, so merry, heigh ho!
As the light-hearted fairy? heigh ho,
Heigh ho!
He dances and sings
To the sound of his wings
With a hey and a heigh and a ho.
Oh, who is so merry, so airy, heigh ho!
As the light-headed fairy? heigh ho,
Heigh ho!
His nectar he sips
From the primroses' lips
With a hey and a heigh and a ho.
Oh, who is so merry, so merry, heigh ho!
As the light-footed fairy? heigh ho,
Heigh ho!
The night is his noon
And his sun is the moon,
With a hey and a heigh and a ho.
—Unknown.
The Land of Counterpane
When I was sick and lay a-bed,
I had two pillows for my head,
And all my toys beside me lay
To keep me happy all the day.
And sometimes for an hour or so
I watched my leaden soldiers go,
With different uniforms and drills,
Among the bed-clothes through the hills;
And sometimes sent my ships in fleets
All up and down among the sheets;
Or brought my trees and houses out,
And planted cities all about.
I was the giant great and still
That sits upon the pillow-hill,
And sees before him, dale and plain,
The pleasant land of counterpane.
—Robert Louis Stevenson.
My Shadow
I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;
And I see him jump before me when I jump into my bed.
The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow—
Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;
For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber ball,
And he sometimes gets so little that there's none of him at all.
He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play,
And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.
He stays so close beside me, he's a coward you can see;
I'd think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me.
One morning, very early, before the sun was up,
I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;
But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head,
Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.