“You see my berries, how they gleam and glow,
Clear ruby-red, and green, and orange-yellow;
Do they not tempt you, fairies, dangling so?”
The fairies shake their heads and answer “No!
You are a crafty fellow!”
“What, won’t you try them? There is naught to pay!
Why should you think my berries poisoned things?
You fairies may look scared and fly away—
The children will believe me when I say
My fruit is fruit for kings!”
But all good fairies cry in anxious haste,
“O children, do not taste!”