The Elders' Fairy Book

SOME are, who for lost regions of enchantment sigh, Lamenting still their infancy's loved pilgrimages Through realms where even beans grew normally league-high, Where forests, scorning quite Dame Nature's sober stages, Upsprang full-leafed at witch's dictate or at mage's. But he no vegetable marvel lacks who reads, When first a vagrant wind the swelling spring presages, The elders' fairy book, Blank's Catalogue of Seeds!

And sentimental souls have longings that ne'er die, For pink-pranked garden spaces, bosky pasturages, For lilied fountains with sweet, dusky arbors nigh, For stingless bees, and birds that love their pretty cages, For blooms defying blight and autumn's windy rages. Ah, Arcady, forgot, rejected of dull creeds, One volume still revives thee and thine appanages— The elders' fairy book, Blank's Catalogue of Seeds!

And ye who mourn the Perfect State, which, with rapt eye, In youth ye visioned, where no sordid thought of wages, But zeal alone drove men in useful works to vie; Where rich and poor at last were one, all surplusages Apportioned justly by impartial, selfless sages— Here, lithographed, behold what your bright dream exceeds— Snug cots, trim lawns, neat, smiling toilers of all ages— The elders' fairy book, Blank's Catalogue of Seeds!

ENVOY Prince, here, is balm that each successive grief assuages As dream by dream Utopia gradually recedes— To win the vision back, we need but con these pages— This elders' fairy book, Blank's Catalogue of Seeds!