The Fairy’s Gift
“Take short views.”
—Sydney Smith.
The Fays that to my christ’ning came
(For come they did, my nurses taught me),
They did not bring me wealth or fame,
’Tis very little that they brought me.
But one, the crossest of the crew,
The ugly old one, uninvited,
Said, “I shall be avenged on you,
My child; you shall grow up short-sighted!”
With magic juices did she lave
Mine eyes, and wrought her wicked pleasure.
Well, of all gifts the Fairies gave,
Hers is the present that I treasure!
The bore whom others fear and flee,
I do not fear, I do not flee him;
I pass him calm as calm can be;
I do not cut—I do not see him!
And with my feeble eyes and dim,
Where you see patchy fields and fences,
For me the mists of Turner swim—
My “azure distance” soon commences!
Nay, as I blink about the streets
Of this befogged and miry city,
Why, almost every girl one meets
Seems preternaturally pretty!
“Try spectacles,” one’s friends intone;
“You’ll see the world correctly through them.”
But I have visions of my own,
And not for worlds would I undo them.