Poem for Monday and Tower Hill Fairies

The Fairies 

By William Allingham 

Up the airy mountain,

Down the rushy glen,

We daren’t go a-hunting

For fear of little men;

Wee folk, good folk,

Trooping all together;

Green jacket, red cap,

And white owl’s feather!

Down along the rocky shore

Some make their home,

They live on crispy pancakes

Of yellow tide-foam;

Some in the reeds

Of the black mountain-lake,

With frogs for their watchdogs,

All night awake.

High on the hill-top

The old King sits;

He is now so old and grey

He’s nigh lost his wits.

With a bridge of white mist

Columbkill he crosses,

On his stately journeys

From Slieveleague to Rosses;

Or going up with music

On cold starry nights,

To sup with the Queen

Of the gay Northern Lights.

They stole little Bridget

For seven years long;

When she came down again

Her friends were all gone.

They took her lightly back,

Between the night and morrow,

They thought that she was fast asleep,

But she was dead with sorrow.

They have kept her ever since

Deep within the lake,

On a bed of flag-leaves,

Watching till she wake.

By the craggy hillside,

Through the mosses bare,

They have planted thorn trees

For pleasure, here and there.

Is any man so daring

As dig them up in spite,

He shall find their sharpest thorns

In his bed at night.

Up the airy mountain,

Down the rushy glen,

We daren’t go a-hunting

For fear of little men;

Wee folk, good folk,

Trooping all together;

Green jacket, red cap,

And white owl’s feather!

-------- 

I had a lot of laundry after dressing up over the weekend for fairs, and I did no other chores the past couple of days, so Monday mostly involved catch-up on those things. It was a pretty day, warmer because of the post-tropical storm air, so I did get a nice walk in, and we hung out with our neighbors for a little while before dinner. 

The late afternoon and evening have been all about baseball, though neither team I rooted for (the Dodgers and Rays) managed to win, though I have nothing against the Brewers or Guardians. Some photos from the Weekend of Wonder at the New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill to celebrate Fairy Hollow: crafts, wand-making, owl visitors!