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A HOUSE OF SWEETS
- BUILD me a house of fairy ginger‐bread,
- Covered with candied fruits and sugarplums—
- Fruits that decay not when November comes—
- Sparkling and juicy, purple and gold and red.
- Thatch me the roof with chips of cocoa‐nut,
- Sugared and white, as are December snows:
- Around the eaves hang toffee‐drops in rows.
- With golden‐syrup fill the water‐butt.
- Then in the flower garden dig deep wells
- Of cowslip wine and bubbling lemonade;
- Let the house walls with chocolate be laid,
- And pave the floors with coloured caramels.
- So, I contented there would often spend
- My happy days, and give to every child
- Bits of my house, for this, whene’er they smiled,
- Should of its own self grow again and mend!
