From the Perth Amboy Evening News, April 21, 1913.
Deep hidden in the green of woods,
Where rain of sunlight, sifting through
The woven layers of the leaves
Makes diamonds of the dew,
There is a secret nook I know
Where yellow lady’s slippers grow.
And I have seen from day to day
(Though new ones come to take the place)
How soon they seem to wear away
And lose their first day’s grace.
And I have often mourned that they
Should be so quick to fade away.
It’s strange I never guessed this thing
Before, but now I know,
Because I found a fairy ring
Beside the place they grow—
The moss, which is the fairies’ lawn,
With toadstools that they sit upon.
The fairies put the flowers there
Of course. They never grew by chance.
At midnight each one takes a pair—
They wear the slippers when they dance.
And with the peeping of the sun
They hang them on their stalks and run.