Broken fairy-brooms are lying near the fir-tree on the grass,

Though the fairies went an hour ago to bed.

There's a family of fairies lives inside our pigeon-cot,

And there's cooings round about our chimney-stack,

For the pigeons are all sitting there and talking such a lot

And there's nothing Gard'ner does will drive them back;

"Why, they'll choke up those roof-gutters if they start this nesting fuss;

They've got a house," he says, "so I don't see—"

No, he doesn't know the secret, and there's no one does but—us,

All the pigeons, and the fairy-folk and ME!