The Fays that to my christ'ning came
( For come they did, my nurses taught me ),
They did not bring me wealth or fame,
‘ Tis very little that they brought me.
But one, the crossest of the crew,
The ugly old one, uninvited,
Said, “I shall be avenged on YOU,
My child; you shall grow up short-sighted!”
With magic juices did she lave
Mine eyes, and wrought her wicked pleasure.
Well, of all gifts the Fairies gave,
HERS is the present that I treasure!
The bore whom others fear and flee,
I do not fear, I do not flee him;
I pass him calm as calm can be;
I do not cut — I do not see him!
And with my feeble eyes and dim,
Where YOU see patchy fields and fences,
For me the mists of Turner swim -
MY “azure distance” soon commences!
Nay, as I blink about the streets
Of this befogged and miry city,
Why, almost every girl one meets
Seems preternaturally pretty!
“Try spectacles,” one's friends intone;
“You'll see the world correctly through them.”
But I have visions of my own,
And not for worlds would I undo them.