The Wonderful Fairies of the Sun/The Wind Fairies
“He dances all day with the Polar Bears.”
THE WIND FAIRIES.
WE now meet four Fairies unlike the Gnomes,
The Goblins, the Sprites, or Elves;
For all of those Fairies are found in tribes
Exclusive among themselves.
The Four Winds, however, have different tastes,
Preferring to live alone,
And roam o’er the Earth or the boundless skies
In a manner that’s all their own.
Two boys and two girls form this strange quartet,
Who never were known to rest.
One boy is called North Wind, the other one East,
While the ladies are South and West.
They each have their home, though they’re miles apart,
And each in a different clime;
But there always is one of them round our home,
Though never but one at a time.
Sir North is a blustering, hearty chap,
Always dressed in a suit of snow.
He spends all his time in the Arctic lands
With the reindeer and Esquimaux.
He dances all day with the Polar Bears,
And through the long frigid nights
He works at his bellows, that furnish the draft
For the high-blazing Northern Lights.
“He flirts with the Mermaids, he rocks their waves,
And sings them his weird love-song.”
The other boy, East, loves the deep blue Sea,
And helps the great ships along.
He flirts with the Mermaids, he rocks their waves,
And sings them his weird love-song.
The only real work that he has to do
Is to sweep up the morning skies.
And put the small blinking stars to bed
When it’s time for the Sun to rise.
He stays at the beaches in summer time,
And keeps them both fresh and cool.
He rides on the backs of the plunging whales;
He chases the mackerel school.
He laughs when the roar of the breaking surf
On some rocky coast he hears;
And the squawk of the gull, so harsh to us,
Is music to this lad’s ears.
Thus all the year round he roams abroad
O’er the billowy, bounding sea;
Knowing no bounds, no rules, no law.
But happy, content, and free.
He’s a fellow who loves to romp and play,
Who often has stormed and raved;
But, like other boys, I think you’ll find
He’s generally well-behaved.
“Every one loves her, she’s so refined;
So gentle, so light and neat.”
The gentle South Wind is a maiden sweet,
The friend of young lovers true.
She peeps through their arbor on moon-lit nights,
And sings as they bill and coo.
And her song lulls the tree-top babes to sleep;
While the flowers all over the land,
Dream peacefully on, as they’re slowly swayed
By this Goddess’s gentle hand.
Every one loves her, she’s so refined;—
So gentle, so light and neat.
She brings with her hundreds of singing birds,
And bundles of flowers sweet.
When she waves her wand o’er a northern clime
Where Winter has held his sway,
The cold, barren ground so long confined
Blooms forth into verdure gay.
Down where she lives, she likes to fly
O’er the coral reefs and isles,
Or wend her way through the tangled paths
Of the jungle’s depths for miles.
There, while the monkeys jump and dance,
She follows some shaded path
To the rivers, to watch the elephants
Enjoying their noon-day bath.
“She dresses in careless, tom-boy style,
Her cloak flapping here and there.”
The West Wind is more of the tom-boy style.
She lives where the mountains rise.
She pushes the bright-hued clouds across
The beautiful sunset skies.
The journey that’s taken by the Sun
Is always toward her domain,
And she’s proud to display her country's charms,
Though rugged, or rough and plain.
She loves the great Prairies’ broad expanse,
Where the antelopes graze and roam.
She fans the cook-fires round the door
Of the Indian’s wigwam home.
She sleeps on the highest of mountain-peaks,
Where man yet has never trod,—
Where rocks stand erect instead of trees,
Where are ledges instead of sod.
She dresses in careless tom-boy style,
Her cloak flapping here and there,
With a raw-hide girdle around her waist
And a wealth of long flowing hair.
She eats the sweet clovers from river-banks,
She drinks from the bright cascades,
And certainly is the queen of all
Such happy-go-lucky maids.