These poems come from the book The Fairy Flute by Rose Fyleman, originally published in 1921. It’s a collection of children’s poems about fairies; I picked these three specifically to share because I like the interaction between the real world and the fantasy world the fairies come from.
The featured post image is “The Fairy Queen takes an airy drive in a light carriage, a twelve-in-hand, drawn by thoroughbred butterflies,” from the book In fairy-land (1875).
👉 All posts about fairy tales / All children’s stuff posts / More poetry / More literature
Note: Some links here are affiliate links, which means if you click on it and buy something, I get a small percentage. This money goes towards running the blog. Thank you for your support!
IN BOND STREET
Upon her little velvet hat
A silken tassel hung,
And to the very end of that
A tiny fairy clung.
Among her curls he bobbed about
And played at hide-and-seek
With every dimple that came out
Upon her chin or cheek.
This is a common sight perchance
For Londoners to see?
It seemed to draw no curious glance
From anyone but me.
Along the street I watched her go
Serenely unaware;
And still he tumbled to and fro
(It seemed so strange she should not know)
Among her golden hair.
RAINY MORNING
As I was walking in the rain
I met a fairy down a lane.
We walked along the road together,
I soon forgot about the weather.
He told me lots of lovely things:
The story that the robin sings,
And where the rabbits go to school,
And how to know a fairy pool,
And what to say and what to do
If bogles ever bother you.
The flowers peeped from hedgy places
And shook the raindrops from their faces,
And furry creatures all the way
Came popping out and said “Good-day.”
But when we reached the little bend,
Just where the village houses end,
He seemed to slip into the ground,
And when I looked about I found
The rain was suddenly all over
And the sun shining on the clover.
SOMETIMES
Some days are fairy days. The minute that you wake You have a magic feeling that you never could mistake; You may not see the fairies, but you know that they’re about, And any single minute they might all come popping out; You want to laugh, you want to sing, you want to dance and run, Everything is different, everything is fun; The sky is full of fairy clouds, the streets are fairy ways— Anything might happen on truly fairy days. Some nights are fairy nights. Before you go to bed You hear their darling music go chiming in your head; 54You look into the garden, and through the misty grey You see the trees all waiting in a breathless kind of way. All the stars are smiling; they know that very soon The fairies will come singing from the land behind the moon. If only you could keep awake when Nurse puts out the light... Anything might happen on a truly fairy night.
Sources & Resources
Fyleman, Rose. (2025). The Fairy Flute. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved January 17, 2026, from https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76340.
The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. (1875). The Fairy Queen takes an airy drive in a light carriage, a twelve-in-hand, drawn by thoroughbred butterflies Retrieved from https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/7c2afe40-c5bb-012f-7063-58d385a7bc34
Rose Fyleman’s Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_Fyleman
Also check out British Fairies blog for more research/discussion on British fairy lore.
