Bring the mystique of fairyland to life: 10 beguiling fairy poems

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Have you ever wished to escape to a world where magic and wonder abound?

Fairyland, with its enchanting creatures and whimsical landscapes, offers a delightful refuge for the imagination.

Here are 10 beguiling fairy poems that transport you to this mystical realm, igniting your sense of wonder and nostalgia.

Let’s get right to it!

My favorite fairy poem

#1 “The Fairies” by William Allingham

Up The

Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We darent go a-hunting
For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owls feather!

Down along the rocky shore
Some make their home,
They live on crispy pancakes
Of yellow tide-foam;
Some in the reeds
Of the black mountain lake,
With frogs for their watch-dogs,
All night awake.

This is my top choice for a poem about fairies because it beautifully captures the essence of their enchanting world.

The vivid imagery and playful language invite readers to imagine a realm where wee folk inhabit lush landscapes, from mountains to shores, living in harmony with nature.

This poem evokes a sense of nostalgia and wonder, reminding us of the magic that exists just beyond our everyday lives, sparking curiosity about these mystical beings.

9 more fairy poems

#2 “Fairy Cavalier” by Madison Julius Cawein

By A

By a mushroom in the moon,
White as bud from budded berry,
Silver buckles on my shoon, –
Ho! the moon shines merry.

Here I sit and drink my grog, –
Stocks and tunic ouphen yellow,
Skinned from belly of a frog, –
Quite a fine, fierce fellow.

My good cloak a bat’s wing gave,
And a beetle’s wings my bonnet,
And a moth’s head grew the brave,
Gallant feather on it.

Faith! I have rich jewels rare,
Rings and carcanets all studded
Thick with spiders’ eyes, that glare
Like great rubies blooded.

And I swear, sirs, by my blade,
“Sirrah, a good stabbing hanger!” –
From a hornet’s stinger made, –
When I am in anger.

Fill the lichen pottles up!
Honey pressed from hearts of roses;
Cheek by jowl, up with each cup
Till we hide our noses.

Good, sirs! – marry! – ’tis the cock!
Hey, away! the moon’s lost fire!
Ho! the cock our dial and clock –
Hide we ‘neath this brier.

#3 “Fairies’ Song” by James Henry Leigh Hunt

We The

Translation of a Latin poem by Thomas Randolph

We the fairies blithe and antic
Of dimensions not gigantic,
Though the moonshine mostly keep us,
Oft in orchards frisk and peep us.

Stolen sweets are always sweeter;
Stolen kisses much completer;
Stolen looks are nice in chapels;
Stolen, stolen be your apples.

When to bed the world are bobbing,
Then’s the time for orchard robbing;
Yet the fruit were scarce worth peeling
Were it not for the stealing, stealing.

#4 “Fairies” by Madison Julius Cawein

Theres A

There’s a little fairy who
Peeps from every drop of dew:
You can see him wink and shine
On the morning-glory vine,
Mischief in his eye of blue.
There’s another fairy that
Rides upon the smallest gnat:
You can hear him tremolo
When the summer dusk falls slow,
Circling just above your hat.
And another one that sways
In the golden slanted rays
Of the sunlight where it floats:
Prosy people call them motes,
But they’re fairies, father says.
But there’s one that no one sees,
Only, maybe, moths and bees;
Who in lofts, where knot-holes are,
On the thin light of a star
Slides through crannied crevices.
You may hear him sigh and sing
Near a May-fly’s captured wing
In a spider-web close by:
See him with a moonbeam pry
Moonflowers open where they swing.
Down the garden-ways he goes
On a beetle’s back, and blows
Sullen music from a horn:
Or you’ll hear him when ‘t is morn
Buzzing bee-like by a rose.
And it’s he who, when ‘t is night,
Twinkles with a firefly light;
Shakes a katydid tambourine;
Or amid the mossy green
Rasps his cricket-fiddle tight.
He it is who heaves the dome
Of the mushroom through the loam,
Plumper than a baby’s thumb:
Or who taps a tinder drum
In the dead wood’s honeycomb.
He’s that Robin Goodfell’w,
Or that Puck who, long ago,
Used to marshlight-lead astray
People in old Shakespeare’s day
That is, father told me so.
He’s the one that, in the Fall,
Frisks the dead leaves round us all;
Herds them; drives them wildly past,
Dancing with them just as fast
As a boy can throw a ball.
Wonder what he looks like. Asked
Father once. He said he’d tasked
Mind and soul to find out, but
It was harder than a nut;
Just refused to be unmasked.
Though he thought, perhaps, he might
Find out some time, and delight
Telling me; but well he knew
He was like my questions, too,
Teasing and confusing quite.

#5 “The Fairies Dancing” by Walter De La Mare

I Heard

I heard along the early hills,
Ere yet the lark was risen up,
Ere yet the dawn with firelight fills
The night-dew of the bramble-cup, –
I heard the fairies in a ring
Sing as they tripped a lilting round
Soft as the moon on wavering wing.
The starlight shook as if with sound,
As if with echoing, and the stars
Prankt their bright eyes with trembling gleams
While red with war the gusty Mars
Rained upon earth his ruddy beams.
He shone alone, low down the West,
While I, behind a hawthorn-bush,
Watched on the fairies flaxen-tressed
The fires of the morning flush.
Till, as a mist, their beauty died,
Their singing shrill and fainter grew;
And daylight tremulous and wide
Flooded the moorland through and through;
Till Urdon’s copper weathercock
Was reared in golden flame afar,
And dim from moonlit dreams awoke
The towers and groves of Arroar.

#6 “Fairies” by Eric Mackay

Fairies Glory

VII.

Fairies.

Glory endures when calumny hath fled;
And fairies show themselves, in friendly guise,
To all who hold a trust beyond the dead,
And all who pray, albeit so worldly-wise,
With cheerful hearts or wildly-weeping eyes.
They come and go when children are in bed
To gladden them with dreams from out the skies
And sanctify all tears that they have shed!
Fairies are wing’d for wandering to and fro.
They live in legends; they survive the Greeks.
Wisdom is theirs; they live for us and grow,
Like things ambrosial, fairer than the freaks
Of signs and seasons which the poets know,
Or fires of sunset on the mountain-peaks.

#7 “Fairy Song” by Louisa May Alcott

The Moonlight

The moonlight fades from flower and tree,
And the stars dim one by one;
The tale is told, the song is sung,
And the Fairy feast is done.
The night-wind rocks the sleeping flowers,
And sings to them, soft and low.
The early birds erelong will wake:
‘T is time for the Elves to go.

O’er the sleeping earth we silently pass,
Unseen by mortal eye,
And send sweet dreams, as we lightly float
Through the quiet moonlit sky;–
For the stars’ soft eyes alone may see,
And the flowers alone may know,
The feasts we hold, the tales we tell:
So ‘t is time for the Elves to go.

From bird, and blossom, and bee,
We learn the lessons they teach;
And seek, by kindly deeds, to win
A loving friend in each.
And though unseen on earth we dwell,
Sweet voices whisper low,
And gentle hearts most joyously greet
The Elves where’er they go.

When next we meet in the Fairy dell,
May the silver moon’s soft light
Shine then on faces gay as now,
And Elfin hearts as light.
Now spread each wing, for the eastern sky
With sunlight soon will glow.
The morning star shall light us home:
Farewell! for the Elves must go.

#8 “The Fairy In Winter” by Walter De La Mare

There Was

There was a Fairy – flake of winter –
Who, when the snow came, whispering, Silence,
Sister crystal to crystal sighing,
Making of meadow argent palace,
Night a star-sown solitude,
Cried ‘neath her frozen eaves, “I burn here!”

Wings diaphanous, beating bee-like,
Wand within fingers, locks enspangled,
Icicle foot, lip sharp as scarlet,
She lifted her eyes in her pitch-black hollow –
Green as stalks of weeds in water –
Breathed: stirred.

Rilled from her heart the ichor, coursing,
Flamed and awoke her slumbering magic.
Softlier than moth’s her pinions trembled;
Out into blackness, light-like, she flittered,
Leaving her hollow cold, forsaken.

In air, o’er crystal, rang twangling night-wind.
Bare, rimed pine-woods murmured lament.

#9 “The fairies break their dances” by Alfred Edward Housman

The Fairies

The fairies break their dances
And leave the printed lawn,
And up from India glances
The silver sail of dawn.

The candles burn their sockets,
The blinds let through the day,
The young man feels his pockets
And wonders what’s to pay.

#10 “The Fairy Queen’s Song” by William Schwenck Gilbert

Oh Foolish

Oh, foolish fay,
Think you because
Man’s brave array
My bosom thaws
I’d disobey
Our fairy laws?
Because I fly
In realms above,
In tendency
To fall in love
Resemble I
The amorous dove?

Oh, amorous dove!
Type of Ovidius Naso!
This heart of mine
Is soft as thine,
Although I dare not say so!

On fire that glows
With heat intense
I turn the hose
Of Common Sense,
And out it goes
At small expense!
We must maintain
Our fairy law;
That is the main
On which to draw –
In that we gain
A Captain Shaw.

Oh, Captain Shaw!
Type of true love kept under!
Could thy Brigade
With cold cascade
Quench my great love, I wonder!

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