Garth lay still in the gilded cage
Unable to move a thing,
The bars were merely spiders’ webs
Of a faery’s magicking.
He’d wandered into the Faery Ring
Where he’d seen the mushrooms spread,
And now was caught in a faery spell
With the rest of the living dead.

With Tom, the Candlestick Maker’s son
And a barrel of candlewax,
He’d dawdled home from the marketplace
And lay in the beckoning grass.
He woke to find he was tightly bound
With a faery up on his chest,
She said, ‘Lock him in the cage as well,
Along with all of the rest.’

And Madge, the maid with a milking pail
Who was sent to milk the cow,
She’d wandered off on her way; she thought,
She needed to feed the sow.
She woke to mushrooms, ten feet tall
All towering over her head,
The stalks were bars, set under the stars
And her limbs, they felt like lead.

While Tim the Tinker was there as well
With his knives and sharpening tools,
His grindstone lay in a pile of hay
And the bonds on him were cruel.
The beggar lay in his filthy rags
While the rich man muttered, ‘Shame!’
He’d soiled his boots and his Regency suit,
Was bound with his watch and chain.

They lie not far from the caravans
Of a gypsy camping ground,
So Faeries say: ‘Let’s take them away
Before they’re seen and found!’
But dancing into the faery ring
Is the Gypsy, Mavourneen,
Who stumbles over the gilded cage
And steps on the Faery Queen.

The top flies off from the gilded cage,
The webs of the bars are torn,
And Garth crawls over the mushroom heads
To swear, ‘I feel reborn!’
The faeries weep as they carry their Queen
In death, to their Faery Dell,
There’s mushrooms still in that Faery Ring,
But now, Toadstools as well!

David Lewis Paget

England 1892.

The Orphan boy.
The Orphan Boy

The little boy lay sleeping homeless in the park.
So cold and he did shiver so frightened in the dark.
No mother or father to tuck him into bed
No pillow full of feathers to rest his weary head

The faery Queen looked down upon him a tear fell from her eye.
The winter winds will end him he surely will just die
She commanded her best faeries go to the little boy
Go bring him to our island to be happy filled with joy

Bring him to the faerie place to run free and run wild
Where happiness will fill him go bring the human child
Guide him here in safety fly here hand in hand
From his world so filled with sadness
With more tears than he can stand

The cold was biting through him he was near his very last
As the faery throng came to him his troubles were near passed
A thousand faery hands took him like a feather to the sky
To warm him by the suns light as to the magic land they fly

No more to feel the hunger and pain of being alone
The magic kingdom he lived in was a wonderful new home
He had fairies for sisters and the faery queen became his Mom
He was her little boy her one and only human son

The faery throng all sang to him a lovely faery song
"We brought him to our island to live with our faery thong.
To live within the magic faery land to run free and run wild
Where happiness now fills him our only human child
Never to be alone again and always hold a faery hand
From his world so filled with sadness
With more tears than he can stand."