Fairies Everywhere [poem for children, by Eva Oakley]

[Editor: This poem for children, by Eva Oakley, was published in Real Australian Fairy Stories, version 2 (1950).]

Fairies Everywhere

Fairies here and Fairies there!
Fairies dancing everywhere
Up the hill and down the dale,
In the lovely moonlight pale!

Underneath the trees, they go,
Dancing round; then in a row;
All their tiny feet go patter;
You can’t hear them; what’s it matter?

You just think, “The moon is out;
So the Fairies are about,
Doing good for ev’ryone,
Till the rising of the sun.”

Then they all go home and sing,
Till the bell goes, “Ding! Dong! Ding!”
That’s the sign that breakfast’s ready,
After which, they go to “beddie,”
Just to rest till evening comes,
When the little, Fairy drums
Wake them up, all gay and bright,
To do more good deeds in the night.

Source:
Eva Oakley, Real Australian Fairy Stories (version 2), Melbourne: Austral Printing & Publishing Company, [1950], p. 16

Editor’s notes:
beddie = a diminutive form of “bed”

dale = a small valley, dell, or glen, especially one with many trees; a secluded wooded hollow

ev’ryone = (vernacular) everyone

gay = happy, joyous, carefree; well-decorated, bright, attractive (in modern times it may especially refer to a homosexual, especially a male homosexual; can also refer to something which is no good, pathetic, useless)

[Editor: The original text has been separated into paragraphs.]