# Who wrote this poem?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wrote-this-poem/405668>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [May 27, 2007, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wrote-this-poem/405668 "2007-05-27T01:06:08Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![istara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e79b87/32.png) [@istara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/istara)\
**Post date:** [May 27, 2007, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wrote-this-poem/405668/1 "2007-05-27T01:06:08Z")

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There is a poem I remember pretty much verbatim from childhood, I must have learnt it by heart back then. Weird how that has stuck in my mind and not quadratic equations, but c’est la vie.

However I can’t remember who wrote it. Here’s what I remember:

\*As I lay quietly in the grass  
Half dreaming, half awake  
I saw four children barefoot pass  
Across the tufted brake  
The sky was glass, the pool was glass  
And not a leaf did shake

The autumn berries clustered thick  
Seldom I’d met with more  
I thought these children came to pick  
Many as picked before  
Each had a long and crooked stick  
And crowns of ash they wore

But not one berry did they take  
Gliding, I watched them go  
Hand in hand across the lake  
With sallies to and fro  
So half asleep and half awake  
I guessed what now I know

They were not children, live and rough  
Nor phantoms of the dead  
But spirits, woven of airy stuff  
By wandering fancies led  
Creatures of silence, fair enough  
No sooner seen than sped\*

Anyone recognise it?