

met a little Elf-man, once,
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Down where the lilies blow.
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I asked him why he was so small
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And why he didn't grow.
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He slightly frowned, and with his eye
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He looked me through and through.
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"I'm quite as big for me," said he,
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"As you are big for you."

"The Little Elf" by John Kendrick Bangs from The Posy Ring: A Book of Verse for Children [1903], chosen and classified by Kate Douglas Wiggins and Nora Archibald Smith. Illustration by Charles E. Brock, from Hood's Humorous Poems [1891] by Thomas Hood.