Page:Fugitive Poetry 1600-1878.djvu/535

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THE FAIRY AND THE SCISSORS.

517

It happened on a summer's day,
When balmy breezes lightly play,
A Fairy in a gamesome mood,
Resolved to quit the mazy wood;
And not determined where to stray,
At once to Chance commits her way;
And Chance that ever has a spite,
And is to lovers unpolite,
Conducts the elf where Lucy lives,
And entrance to her chamber' gives.

Yet some daresay that I defame,
That Chance was not at all to blame:
For zephyr bore her on his wing,
And through some inlet safe did bring—
But be this as it pleases Fame,
She into Lucy's closet came;
And looking round with eager eyes,
A tambour frame she soon descries,
Doubtful for what it could be meant,
Rather than on some mischief bent;

The Fairy takes a nearer view,
And while she looked more curious grew;
Had Lucy luckily been near,
The whole affair had ended here;
The Muses too had had no need
To linger o'er the little deed;
But she who lets not toil oppress,
Was gone away in time to dress,
And left her tools some here, some there,
Sure token of the giddy fair.

The elf some time admired the foil,
The nice extended silken toil,
The pencil line, so neatly faint,
And shades of silk that vied with paint,
Till all in rapture at the sight,
She went to work with all her might.

In hand she takes the mounted steel,
The scissors too, and tight wound reel,
And if report for once say true,
It was a reel of rosebud hue;
But in her hurry to begin,
She of her finger cut the skin;
And now her project at a stand,
Down dropped the scissors from her hand,