Cicely Fox Smith Poems

A rough old nut,
A tough old nut
Of a skipper:
But the right stuff,
...

Why, where erstwhile I sowed my choicest seeds,
Come up but weeds?
Why do large docks
Appear where should be stocks
...

I know not in what freakist hour
My kindred strange and wild
Did cast me out from Elfinland
To be a human child.
...

I will not lift the door-latch, I will not step in
From the dark fields and the starlight and the bent and whin:
...

The alligator is a creature
With not a single pleasing feature;
And even when it's very small,
...

All in a green thicket I heard a bird sing,
And blithe though his song was it made the tears spring,
To hear a bird sing as he swung on his spray,
...

Wake, little Waxy! Hunting-time again,
The short days and goodly, the clean Autumn rain:
In the old North country, in the grey open weather,
...

Long before the Mammoth died in the ice and snow,
Master Brocky made his earth snug and warm below.
...

All Hallows Eve - when ghosts do walk the earth:
All Hallows Eve - O light and fireside mirth!
Ah, leave the gay revel and the merry din,
...

I rather think they built her in some good old-fashioned yard
That smelt of pitch and sawdust and of hemp rope newly tarred,
...