The Wonderful Fairies of the Sun/The Musical Sprites
THE MUSICAL SPRITES.
THE Musical Fairies are queer little sprites
Who teach Nature’s children to sing.
Their lessons are held where the pupils abide,
And the classes are formed in a ring.
Some teach the young birds all their beautiful songs
In a school-room high up in the trees;
While a few show the chirp of the crickets and bugs,
Others teaching the hum of the bees.
In the bushes are teachers who spend all their time
Instructing young partridge and quails;
And a dozen young sprites teaching squirrels to squeak
Hold their classes on stone walls and rails.
There are school-rooms in barn-yards for chickens and ducks
(With departments for kittens and dogs),
While the frog-teacher drills his young singers all day
From a stump in the midst of the bogs.
“Thus, early and late are these teachers at work,
Each proud of his own special class.”
In the large open pastures some classes are found
That surely would cause you to laugh;
For the Fairies out there teach the bray of the mule
And the bleat of the lamb and the calf.
Little colts learn to neigh, baby pigs grunt and squeal,
While out in the woods every noon
The tree-toads and crows practise singing at sight
And the locust rehearses his tune.
Thus, early and late are these teachers at work,
Each proud of his own special class:
And the pupils enjoy it I know, for they have
No examinations to pass.
They all sing as loud or as long as they choose,
And the teacher is simply to see
That the chickens don’t growl, or the bumble-bees bark,
Or the dogs try to buzz like a bee.
