20 JANUARY 1894, Page 16

POETRY.

LINES TO A WRITER OF FAIRY-TALES.

OH, chronicler of Elves and Bees, Whose mutual old antipathies, Whose leagues, whose loves, whose strifes you jolt And battles in the foxglove bell : I know there dwells in your command Some sort of sprite from Fairyland, Whose dainty laughter flutters up Like butterfly from buttercup Into the sun; who does not fear The heavy-falling human tear ; Bred among flowers, it knows soft rain Freshens and feeds and does not stain ;- But where ill creatures leave their trace: It only knows to shun the place : And I, constrained in dingy hive With angry buzz the drones to drive,. Am of the bees ; yet wander too And roam sometimes where fairies do ;. And at Queen Duty's fretful call I work perforce, or not at all.

S. L. GWYNIK-