fairies « Tales From the Landing Book Shelves

This will be the last fairy or other-worldly related poem for a while at least (honest). ‘Goblin Market’ does however, not only tie in with the themes of enchantment on recent days, but also because Christina Rossetti (1830-1894) inherited the mantle of Britain’s most famous female poet from Elizabeth Barrett Browning when she published this poem in 1862. I’ll talk more about Rossetti in a future post, but in the meantime here is a piece from her best known work.

Dover Thrift Edition, 1994

I have only included a small part of Rossetti’s long poem and I decided to scan in the text from my daughter’s edition of Goblin Market as the type seems pretty clear. Let me know if it doesn’t seem to work with your browser. I mentioned the Dover editions previously and I am a big fan of this publisher’s reasonably priced classic re-prints.

Of course, all of those luscious sounding fruits are only there to tempt the unwary, in this case two sisters named Laura and Lizzie who hear the call of the goblins touting their wares. Their cries of ‘come buy, come buy’ have an effect on one of the sisters but I won’t tell you which one just in case you don’t know the tale. Do read it if you get the chance.

That’s all from my Poetry in June sequence for today, I’ll leave you to the remainder of your weekend – but watch out for goblins selling unusually juicy produce if you are visiting any farmer’s markets today…

book cover with Aladdin, Pinoccio, Don Quixote

A childhood favourite

For the first of my ‘Poetry in June’ features I delved into the past – to the Children’s Treasury of Classics that I mentioned in the last post . I have had the book (published by The Children’s Press) since I was a child, though I don’t remember if it was new when I had it. It is undated, though there is a pencilled price of 7/6 on the inside cover. The Treasury is now rather battered and the pages are yellowed.

I have picked out a poem by Rose Fyleman (1877-1957) which was originally published in Punch magazine in May 1917. Fyleman published many stories and verses for children over a very productive life. Her poems still appear in children’s collections today.

There is a nice continuity for me as this poem also happens to be one of our daughter’s favourite poems. And anyway, fairies in the garden seems to me to be a nice way to begin June. I have scanned in the page since I think the illustrations (by Joyce Plumstead 1907-1986) add to the piece, so I hope the text will be legible across different platforms and browsers. Drop a comment in the box if it doesn’t work for you.