A Fairy Tale by Helen Gray Cone

OBERON

FLOWER FANCIES

There stands by the wood-path shaded / A meek little beggar maid; / Close under her mantle faded / She is hidden like one afraid.

Yet if you but lifted lightly / That mantle of russet brown, / She would spring up slender and sightly, / In a smoke-blue silken gown.

For she is a princess, fated / Disguised in the wood to dwell, / And all her life long has awaited / The touch that should break the spell;

And the Oak, that has cast around her / His root like a wrinkled arm, / Is the wild old wizard that bound her. / Fast with his cruel charm.

Is the princess worth your knowing? / Then haste, for the spring is brief, / And find the Hepatica growing, / Hid under a last year's leaf!