Читать книгу Once Upon a Time and Other Child-Verses - Freeman Mary Eleanor Wilkins - Страница 12

MID feeding lambs and springing grass

There sat a little lad and lass,

A green umbrella overhead,

The flickering shade of boughs instead,

And read a book of fairy rhyme,

All in their gay vacation time.

Quoth he: "The dearest, queerest story

Was that one of the fairy prince,

Who sailed down stream in his pearl dory,

Neath boughs of rose and flowering quince,

To save the lovely princess whom

The wicked, white-haired, old witch-lady

Kept in a tower of awful gloom,

Deep in a magic forest shady:

How proud he tossed his plumèd head

Before the witch's door, and said " —

Sheep: Ba-a, ba-a! Honey-sweet the clover's

blowing

Ba-a, ba-a! Juicy-green the grass is

growing.

"I think," quoth she, "there's one that's

better:

About that little fairy girl,

Who bound the ogre with a fetter

Of spiderwort and grass and pearl;

Then singing in the gateway sat,

Till up the road the prince came prancing,

A jewelled feather in his hat,

And set the cherry-boughs a-dancing.

How low he bent his handsome head

Before the fairy girl, and said " —

Sheep: Ba-a, ba-a! Who the day so sweetly

passes

As a lamb who never stops,

But from dawn to twilight crops

Clover-heads and dewy grasses?

"Well, by and by I think I'll be

A fairy prince as brave as he:

I'll wind a silver bugle clear,

Low and dim you'll hear it, dear;

A sword with jewelled hilt I'll bear,

A cap and heron-plume I'll wear,

And I will rescue you," quoth

he.

"Fast to the witch's tower I'll

And beat upon the gate, and

cry

Sheep: Ba-a, ba-a! Sweet the

simple life we're leading,

In the sweet green pasture

feeding!

Then quoth the little reader

fair.

"I've changed my mind, for I don't dare

To stay there in the witch's tower;

I'll be the dame who found a flower

Of gold and rubies – in the tale —

And sold it for a fairy veil,

Which made her look so sweet and true

That she was dearly loved; then you " —

Sheep: Ba-a, ba-a! Turn the juicy morsel over.

Who would be a lad or lass,

If he could his summer pass

As the sheep amongst the clover?

Grasshoppers on daisies teeter,

Dew-drops clovers sweeten sweeter.

Who can care for stupid tales,

Fairy horns and f airy veils,

Fairy princess, fairy prince?

Yet we must not blame them, since

( Turn the juicy morsel over)

They cannot be sheep in clover.