For as her flowers opened to the sun Each seemed a radiant world her soul had won, This paradise of perfume her own hand Had made, this glowing tapestry she planned. From walls that kept marauding winds shut out, A fountain splashed, a brook wound slow about Field of spiced-candy-tuft, hedged with trim box, Dark blue verbenas, larkspur, snow-white phlox, And beds of heliotrope that in the night Offered rare incense for the stars' delight. Robin and catbird sought her iris pool, Fluttered and bathed them in its shallow cool, Then poised one happy moment on the banks To offer to the stream their lyric thanks. EDWARD BLISS REED. ON A MIDSUMMER DAY O, grown-ups cannot understand And grown-ups never will, How short's the way to fairy-land Across the purple hill: They smile: their smile is very bland, Their eyes are wise and chill; And yet—at just a child's command— The world's an Eden still. ALFRED NOYES. THE FRIENDLY COWSLIP BELLS One midsummer day the bright sun shone from morning until evening; not even a wisp of white cloud floated across the blue, blue sky. The fairies were delighted, for that night they were going to have their gayest sport. "We shall have a fine revel in cowslip meadow to-night," said a happy little creature to the fairy shoemaker who had been busy for many a day making shoes for the midsummer revel. The little wrinkled old man was fastening a diamond buckle on the queen's dancing slippers and he did not like to be bothered when he was busy, so he merely shook his head and sang: "Red sky at night Is the fairies' delight; Red sky in the morning Is the fairies' warning." "But there hasn't been a cloud as big as my thumb nail in the sky all day long," said the merry little fairy. "How can there be rain without clouds?" The shoemaker nodded his head, went on with his work, and sang again: "The clear blue sky Means rain is nigh." One hour before midnight when the big round moon lit up the fields and dells a rainbow troop of fairies in dainty gossamer robes and sparkling slippers came forth from their village in the hills for the midsummer night merry-making.