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Home  »  Modern American Poetry  »  The Little Elf

Louis Untermeyer, ed. (1885–1977). Modern American Poetry. 1919.

John Kendrick Bangs1862–1922

The Little Elf

I MET a little Elf-man, once,

Down where the lilies blow.

I asked him why he was so small,

And why he didn’t grow.

He slightly frowned, and with his eye

He looked me through and through.

“I’m quite as big for me,” said he,

“As you are big for you.”