A Fairy Tale.

"On court, hélas! après la vérité;
Ah! croyez-moi, l'erreur a son mérite."
Voltaire.


Curled in a maze of dolls and bricks,
I find Miss Mary, ætat six,
Blonde, blue-eyed, frank, capricious,
Absorbed in her first fairy book,
From which she scarce can pause to look,
Because it's "so delicious!"

"Such marvels, too. A wondrous Boat,
In which they cross a magic Moat,
That's smooth as glass to row on--
A Cat that brings all kinds of things;
And see, the Queen has angel wings--
Then OGRE comes"--and so on.

What trash it is! How sad to find
(Dear Moralist!) the childish mind,
So active and so pliant.
Rejecting themes in which you mix
Fond truths and pleasing facts, to fix
On tales of Dwarf and Giant!

In merest prudence men should teach
That cats mellifluous in speech
Are painful contradictions;
That science ranks as monstrous things
Two pairs of upper limbs; so wings--
E'en angels' wings!--are fictions:

That there's no giant now but Steam;
That life, although "an empty dream,"
Is scarce a "land of Fairy."
"Of course I said all this?" Why, no;
I did a thing far wiser, though,--
I read the tale with Mary.

Henry Austin Dobson

Henry Austin Dobson, commonly known as Austin Dobson, was an English poet and essayist. A civil servant by profession, Dobson was one of the most renowned poets and literary critics of the late Victorian and Edwardian periods. His work is noted for its delicate craftsmanship and profound interest in 18th-century literature. Dobson's poetry often revisited and celebrated historical themes and characters, blending scholarly interest with lyrical form.

Henry Austin Dobson

The Ladies Of St. James's.

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A Miltonic Exercise

Henry Austin Dobson, Simple Poetry

A Song To The Lute.

Henry Austin Dobson, Simple Poetry

Charles George Gordon.

Henry Austin Dobson, Simple Poetry

English

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Certain Truths About Certain Things

I.

And the boy that lives next door
Said to me one day, There's more
In those rhymes of Mother Goose
And those tales, I don't care whose,
Arabian Nights or Grimm's, or, well,
Any one's, than, I've no doubt,
You or I can ever tell,
Or can ever know about.

II.

Why, there is a land, you know,
Where the world is so-and-so:
Where old Hick-a-Hack-a-more
Kicks the king right out his door
And sits on his throne and kills
Blackbirds as they fly from pies,
Pots them on the windowsills
I ain't telling you no lies.

III.

For I met an old man once
And he was n't any dunce
Who just told me he had been
To that land and he had seen
All those people: even met
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On Hounslow Heath - and close beside the road,
As western travellers may oft have seen, -
A little house some years ago there stood,
        A minikin abode;
And built like Mr. Birkbeck's, all of wood:
The walls of white, the window-shutters green, -
Four wheels it had at North, South, East, and West
        (Though now at rest),
On which it used to wander to and fro,
Because its master ne'er maintained a rider,
Like those who trade in Paternoster Row;
But made his business travel for itself,
        Till he had made his pelf,
And then retired - if one may call it so,
        Of a roadsider.

Perchance, the very race and constant riot
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The Fudge Family In Paris Letter I. From Miss Biddy Fudge To Miss Dorothy ----, Of Clonkilty, In Ireland.

Amiens.

Dear DOLL, while the tails of our horses are plaiting,
    The trunks tying on, and Papa, at the door,
Into very bad French is as usual translating
    His English resolve not to give a sou more,
I sit down to write you a line--only think!--
A letter from France, with French pens and French ink,
How delightful! tho', would you believe it, my dear?
I have seen nothing yet very wonderful here;
No adventure, no sentiment, far as we've come,
But the cornfields and trees quite as dull as at home;
And but for the post-boy, his boots and his queue,
I might just as well be at Clonkilty with you!
In vain, at DESSEIN'S, did I take from my trunk
That divine fellow, STERNE, and fall reading "The Monk;"
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A Chapter Of Froissart.

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You don't know Froissart now, young folks.
This age, I think, prefers recitals
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And startling titles;

But, in my time, when still some few
Loved "old Montaigne," and praised Pope's Homer
(Nay, thought to style him "poet" too,
Were scarce misnomer),

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I can re-call how Some-one present
(Who spoils her grandson, Frank!) would read
And find him pleasant;

For,--by this copy,--hangs a Tale.
Long since, in an old house in Surrey,
Where men knew more of "morning ale"
Than "Lindley Murray,"

In a dim-lighted, whip-hung hall,
'Neath Hogarth's "Midnight Conversation,"
It stood; and oft 'twixt spring and fall,
With fon...

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The Fudge Family In Paris Letter V. From Miss Biddy Fudge To Miss Dorothy ----.

What a time since I wrote!--I'm a sad, naughty girl--
For, tho' like a tee-totum, I'm all in a twirl;--
Yet even (as you wittily say) a tee-totum
Between all its twirls gives a letter to note 'em.
But, Lord, such a place! and then, DOLLY, my dresses,
My gowns, so divine!--there's no language expresses,
Except just the two words "superbe, magnifique,"
The trimmings of that which I had home last week!
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Like alicampane--but in truth I'm confounded
And bothered, my dear, 'twixt that troublesome boy's
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The Fairy Curate.

Once a fairy
Light and airy
Married with a mortal;
Men, however,
Never, never
Pass the fairy portal.
Slyly stealing,
She to Ealing
Made a daily journey;
There she found him,
Clients round him
(He was an attorney).

Long they tarried,
Then they married.
When the ceremony
Once was ended,
Off they wended
On their moon of honey.
Twelvemonth, maybe,
Saw a baby
(Friends performed an orgie).
Much they prized him,
And baptized him
By the name of Georgie,

Georgie grew up;
Then he flew up
To his fairy mother.
Happy meeting -
Pleasant greeting -
Kissing one another.
"Choose a calling
Most enthralling,
I sincerely urge ye."
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