Leaving the Earth Fairy
by Molly Harrison

When the last colours of the day
Have from their burning ebbed away,
About that ruin, cold and lone,
The Cricket shrills from stone to stone;
And scattering o'er its darkened green,
Bands of the fairies may be seen,
Chattering like grasshoppers, their feet
Dancing a thistledown dance round it;
While the great gold of the mild moon
Tinges their tiny acorn soon.