Morning With Geeklets and Fairies

Me:  “Oh, I emailed your teacher last night.”

Middle school geeklet: “What? WHY?”

Me: “In her update she’d said that you guys were starting poetry, and I wrote her to say that if she’s planning on doing the sonnets at all I have some classroom materials she could use.”

Geeklet: “Ok, so, yesterday? We split up into these groups and there’s this book of poems where we’re supposed to pick one to recite to the class…”

Me: “Yes, she mentioned that…”

Geeklet: “…and there was one by Shakespeare called, ‘Fairies’.”

Me: “SHAKESPEARE NEVER WROTE A POEM CALLED FAIRIES!”

Geeklet: “Well, that’s what it said.”

Me: “I don’t care what it said, Shakespeare never wrote a poem called Fairies.  Let me guess, did it contain the line Come not near our fairy queen?”

Geeklet: “That sounds familiar. I think so. It was so hard to read!!”

Me: <google>  “Ahem.

You spotted snakes with double tongue,
Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;
Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong,
Come not near our fairy queen.
Philomel, with melody
Sing in our sweet lullaby;
Lulla, lulla, lullaby, lulla, lulla, lullaby:
Never harm,
Nor spell nor charm,
Come our lovely lady nigh;
So, good night, with lullaby.
Weaving spiders, come not here;
Hence, you long-legg’d spinners, hence!
Beetles black, approach not near;
Worm nor snail, do no offence.”

Geeklet: “That’s the one! Right there, that lullalullalullalulla stuff, what does that even mean?!”

It’s a good bit of poetry, but personally I believe that if you don’t have context, then it’s just random words to these kids.

Me: “What other poets were there?”

Geeklet: “There was one called hist wist.”