Part 13

True, as I say, he came back once more, With a fluster’d air, and in anger; I vow He look’d like an alderman lecturing the poor, But meaning at last to—_unlock the cage-door_! Methinks, I see him now! Along and across, he hops and he flits Just so!—on my word—just so! Then suddenly—look, there he sits Upon a topmost twig! He took a flight—and then a hop— Again a flight, Then perch’d so light Upon the twig’s tip-top! Look at his large bright eye, Very round and very black; Now he bobs, and now he bows, Incessantly, With head, and tail, and back; Bob, tail—and now bob, nose, Up and down he goes, Then off he flies in a crack! Upon a tall tree bough, There—there! I see him now! Come, Bob, come! He sits quite dumb— What cares he for a crumb— Look at his breast so red! Again he bows his head, Bobs and bows—ruffles his wings— Now smoothes them down, and then he sings. How he sings and warbles sweet! No more bobbing, Hob-and-nobbing, Quiet he sits, and fills the air With music delicate and rare; And now he glances at his feet, Then like a gentleman complete He bobs again—gives one quick bow, As I do now!— Points down his tail, and up his nose— And _off_ he goes!”

“Run, Tiny—run!—Oh, Kitty, Twig, and Crocus! The little wretch is gone!—oh, villain, thus to joke us! Run, Toody—run!—you, you are the deceiver That loosen’d the cage-door!—I’m surely in a fever! Tiny, chase him—Tiny, catch him! Oh, Kitty, Twig, and Crocus— The robin redbreast story was only meant to hoax us!

Away—away—away! Come all into the wood! Follow me, I say, I say, I say, Through brambles, weeds, and mud!” Oh, none shall run to-day So fast as Granny Grey, She hath the youngest blood!

Off they all ran trooping, And hallooing and hooping, Beneath the low boughs stooping, Right through the wood, For Grandmama Grey, Like an old duck, led the way, When a string of ducks trudge to a flood. Then came Kitty, side by side With Toody, who oft cried, “Oh, Kitty dear, was ever such rare fun, fun, fun!” And Crocus close to Twig, Both scampered in a jig, For they knew the Elf his freedom-race had won, won, won.

As for him, the roguish Elf, He took good care of himself; His mites of legs they twinkled as he fled, fled, fled! He was scarcely seen, indeed, He so glistened with his speed, And his hair streamed out like silver grass behind his head!

Now leaping here, now there, Tiny barking everywhere, Through undergrowth and thicket made his way with nose and claw, Till suddenly the party Met, full drive, with laughter hearty, Florry, Pay, Bow, Carry, Minnie, Ganner, Andy, Ock, and Daw!

Such a meeting—such quick greeting— Such explaining and repeating! All confusion, no one listening, but all for the chase; So off the party pack To follow the Elf’s track, And Granny Grey was foremost still in this mad race!

Now flew buttons, laces, bands, While with burning face and hands, Through and through, and up and down, they troop with shout and crow! Under, over, and across Shrubs, tangles, trunks, and moss, Till their hearts are almost bursting, and they gasp, and puff, and blow! They struggle and they strive, Droop—lag—and then revive; And once again they speed along and wish for wings to fly; They grow deaf and dizzy-eyed— With pains in head and side; But the Elf they cannot overtake—’tis all in vain to try!

So the party wild with heat, And defeat—so complete— To the cottage stagger and retreat— Oh, oh, oh! And, with fagg’d and streaming faces, they all sit down on the floor, Their clothes green from bark of trees— Torn and mudded to the knees—

With faces like red-lion signs, and feet all sore! There they sit, a good long hour, As for moving!—they have no such power; And Martha with hot water comes, each hand and face to wash. And then, still lounging on the ground, Cups of tea are handed round, Their dinners they had lost, while they hunted brake and bush.

All hungry as young hawks, How the toast and butter “walks,” With legs of fowl down hunters’ throats, who seem’d just now half dead; But soon they laugh and shout, Eat and drink, and loll about. Till at last with laughing kisses they all troop off to bed.

But where to sleep none knew, For the cottage was but small, Yet by Dame Grey’s arrangement There was room enough for all. Three slept upon the floor Of the largest room upstairs, And in the parlour, four, On sofa, rug, and chairs. The night was warm and pleasant— One filled the window seat; And two slept in the summer-house— And, oh, it was so sweet!

Within a very little nook Toody always slept alone; Its strip of window stole a look Over the lawn and hay-rick cone. Within the open lattice crept Some jasmine from the cottage wall, And to the breathing of her sleep, Softly swayed, with rise and fall. But something else comes creeping in, As softly from the starry night,— The Elf!—’tis he!—first peeping in, Now like a moth doth he alight! He trips up to the little bed, And near it hangs a full-blown rose, Then in the middle of the flower Places a light that gleams and glows. It is a glow-worm from the lea, And lighting up the rose’s heart, A fairy grot it seems to be— Where dream-thoughts live and ne’er depart. And now the Elf once more is gone Into the woodlands wild, Leaving his blessing thus to shine Upon the dreaming child.

R. H. HORNE.

TWO FAIRIES IN A GARDEN.

1. “Whither goest, brother Elf?”

2. “The sun is weak—to warm myself In a thick red tulip’s core. Whither thou?”

1. “Till day be o’er, To the dim and deep snow-palace Of the closest lily-chalice, Where is veil’d the light of noon To be like my Lady’s moon. Thou art of the day, I ween?”

2. “Yet I not disown our Queen, Nor at Lysc’ am backward found, When the mighty Feast comes round; When She spreads abroad her power To proclaim a midnight hour For the pale blue Fays like thee And the ruddy Elves like me To mingle in a charmèd ring With a perfect welcoming; Guarded from the moon-stroke cold, And wisp that scares us on the wold.”

1. “Swift that Night is drawing near, When your abrupt and jovial cheer, Mixes in our misty dance, Meeting else by rarest chance. We love dark undew’d recesses Of the leafy wildernesses, Or to hide in some cold flow’r, Shelter’d from the sunlight hour, And more afflictive mortal eye.”

2. “Gladly, gladly, do I spy Human children playing nigh, Feel, and so must you, the grace Of a loving human face. Else why come you in this place? O, my Sister, if we might Show ourselves to mortal sight Far more often! if they knew Half the friendly turns we do! Even now, a gentle thought Would pay my service dimly wrought, Round these winding garden-walks, Fruits and flow’rs and leaves and stalks. Paler favourites of the noon, Can ye give or take such boon?”

1. “Chantings, Brother, hear you might, Softly sung through still of night; Calling from the wëird North Dreams like distant echoes forth, Till through curtain’d shades they creep, To inlay the gloomy floor of sleep For babes, and souls that babe-like are: So we bless them from afar Like a faint but favouring star. —But tell me how in fields or bowers Thou hast spent these morning hours?”

2. “Through the tall hedge I have been, Shadowy wall of crusted green, Within whose heart the birds are seen. Speeding swiftly thence away To the crowning chestnut-spray, I watch’d a Tyrant steal along Would slay the sweet Thrush in her song; Warned, she soon broke off from singing, There we left the branchlet swinging. Whispering Robin, down the walk, News of poising, pouncing Hawk, The Sycamore I next must strew On every leaf with honey-dew. And hither now from clouds I run, For all my morning work is done.”

1. “Alas, I wither in the sun, Witless drawn to leave my nest Ere the day be laid to rest! But to-night we lightly troop By the young Moon’s silver hoop; Weaving wide our later ranks As on evening river-banks Shifting crowds of midges glance Through mazes of their airy dance: O might you come, O might you see All our shadow’d revelry! Yet the next night shall be rarer, Next and next and next, still fairer; We are waxing every night, Till our joy be full and bright; Then as slowly do we wane With gentle loss that makes no pain, For thus are we with life endued: Ye, I trow, have rougher food.”

2. “Yes: with fragrant soul we’re fed Of every flower whose cheek is red, Shunning yellow, blue, and white; And southward go, at the nightingale’s flight. Many the Faery Nations be. Oh! how I long, I long to see The moonèd midnight of our Feast, Flushing amber through the east, When every cap in Elfindom Into that great ring shall come, Owf and Elf and Fairy blended. Till th’ imperial time be ended! Even those fantastic Sprites Lay aside their dear delights Of freakish mischief and annoyance In the universal joyance, One of whom I saw of late As I peep’d through window-grate, (Under roof I may not enter) Haunt the housewife to torment her, Tangle up her skeins of silk, Throw a mouse into her milk, Hide her thimble, scorch her roast, Quickly drive her mad almost; And I too vex’d, because I would Have brought her succour if I could. —But where shall this be holden, say? Far away?”

1. “O, far away, Over river must we fly, Over the sea, and the mountain high, Over city, seen afar Like a low and misty star,— Soon beneath us glittering Like million spark-worms. But our wing, For the flight will ne’er suffice. Some are training Flittermice, I a Silver Moth.”

2. “Be ware How I’ll thrid the vaulted air! A Dragon-fly with glassy wings, Born beside the meadow-springs, That can arrow-swiftly glide Thorough the glowing eventide, Nor at twilight-fall grow slack, Shall bear me on his long blue back. Dew-stars, meteors of the night, May not strike him with affright, He can needle through the wood, That’s like a green earth-chainèd cloud, Mountain-summits deftly rake, Draw swift line o’er plain and lake. If at Lysco I be last, Other elves must journey fast. Lu a vo!”

1. “But, Elf, I rede, Of all your Herbs take special heed. Our Mistress tholes no garden flowers, Though we have freedom of these bowers. Tell me what you mean to treasure, Each in ’s atom?”

2. “Gold-of-Pleasure, Medic, Plumeseed, Fountain-arrow, Vervain, Hungry-grass, and Yarrow, Quatrefoil and Melilot.”

1. “These are well. And I have got Moonwort and the Filmy Fern, Gather’d nicely on the turn. Wo to Fairy that shall bring Bugloss for an offering, Toad-flax, Barley of the Wall, Enchanter’s Nightshade, worst of all. —Oh, brother, hush! I faint with fear! A mortal footstep threatens near.”

2. “None can see us, none can hear. Yet, to make thee less afraid, Hush we both as thou hast pray’d. I will seek the verse to spell Written round my dark flow’r’s bell, To sing at sunset. So, Farewell!”

WILLIAM ALLINGHAM.

ELFIN SONG.

I.

Far in the western ocean’s breast The summer fairies have found a nest; The heavens ever unclouded smile Over the breadth of their beautiful isle; Through it a hundred streamlets flow, In spangled paths, to the sea below, And woo the vales that beside them lie With a low and tremulous minstrelsy. The elfin brood have homes they love In the earth below and skies above; But the haunt which of all they love the best Is the palm-crowned isle, in the ocean’s breast, That mortals call Canary; And many an Ariel, blithesome, airy, And each laughing fay and lithesome fairy, Know well the mystical way in the West To the sweet isle of Canary.

II.

With an ever-sounding choral chant, And a clear, cerulean, wild desire To clasp that fairy island nigher, The sinuous waves of ocean pant; For here all natural things are free To mingle in passionate harmony. The light from their mirror turns away With a golden splendour, in the day, But nightly, when coroneted Even Marshals the shining queen of heaven, There gleams a silvery scenery, From the rim of the great prismatic sea Around the isle of Canary To the central crags of Pisgatiri, Where the crested eagle builds his eyry, Scanning the shores of sweet Canary.

III.

Lustrously sailing here and there, Afloat in the beatific air, Birds, of purple and blue and gold, Pour out their music manifold; All day long in the leas they sing, While the sun-kissed flowers are blossoming; At eve, when the dew-drop feeds the rose, And the fragrant water-lilies close, The marvellous-throated nightingale With a dying music floods each vale, Till the seaward breezes, listening, stay To catch the harmony of his lay And cool the air of Canary; And thus the melodies ever vary, In the vales of the ocean aviary, In the blissful valleys of sweet Canary.

IV.

The Elle-King’s palace was builded there By elves of water and earth and air; Lovingly worked each loyal sprite, And it grew to life in a summer night. Over the sheen of its limpid moat, Wafted along, in a magic boat, By fairy wings that fan the sails, And eddying through enchanted vales, Through walls of amber and crystal gates, We come where a fairy warder waits; And so, by many a winding way Where sweet bells jingle and fountains play, To the inmost, royalest room of all,— The elfin monarch’s reception-hall, The pearl and pride of Canary! To guard its fastness the elves are wary, And no weird thing, of pleasure chary, Can enter with evil in sweet Canary!

V.

All that saddens, and care and pain, Are banished far from that fair domain; There forever, by day and night, Is naught but pleasance and love’s delight; Daily, the Genii of the flowers Shade with beauty a hundred bowers; Nightly, the Gnomes of precious stones Emblazon and light a hundred thrones; And the Elves of the field, so swift and mute, Bring wine and honey and luscious fruit; And the Sylphs of the air, at noontide, cool The depths of each bower and vestibule; And all are gay,—from the tricksome Fay Who flutters in woodlands far away, To the best-beloved attendant Elf, And the royal heart of the king himself, Who rules in bright Canary; And the labouring Fairies are blithe and merry, Who press the juice from the swollen berry That reddens the vines of sweet Canary.

VI.

What if there be a fated day When the Faëry Isle shall pass away, And its beautiful groves and fountains seem The myths of a long, delicious dream! A century’s joys shall first repay Our hearts, for the evil of that day; And the Elfin-King has sworn to wed A daughter of Earth, whose child shall be, By cross and water hallowéd, From the fairies’ doom forever free. What if there be a fated day! It is far away! it is far away! Maiden, fair Maiden, I, who sing Of this summer isle, am the island king. I come from its joys to make thee mine: Half of my kingdom shall be thine; Our horses of air and ocean wait— Then hasten, and share the Elle-King’s state In the sweet isle of Canary; And many an Ariel, blithsome, airy, And each laughing fay and lithesome fairy, Shall rovingly hover around and over thee, And the love of a king shall evermore cover thee, Nightly and daily in sweet Canary.

EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN.

THE FERLIE.

A Ferlie came ben to me yestreen, A lady jimp an’ sma’, Wi’ a milk-white snood an’ a kirtle green, Yellow an’ roun were her bonny e’en, And she said, “Will ye come awa’?

“Will ye gang wi’ me to the Elflyn Knowe, To milk our queene’s coo?” “Na, na,” quo’ I, “I maun shear my sheep, I’ve my barn to bigg, an’ my corn to reap, Sae I canna come the noo.”

The ferlie skirled as she turned to gae, For an angry elf was she, “O a wilfu’ man maun hae his way, An I mak’ sma’ doot but ye’ll rue the day That ye wouldna gang wi’ me.”

“O, ance again will ye speir at me An’ I’ll aiblins come awa’?” “O I’ll come again to your yetts,” quo’ she, “When broom blooms bright on yon rowan-tree An’ the laverock sings i’ th’ snaw!”

GRAHAM R. TOMSON.

Miscellaneous.

THE FOUNTAIN OF THE FAIRIES.

There is a fountain in the forest call’d The Fountain of the Fairies: when a child With a delightful wonder I have heard Tales of the elfin tribe who on its banks Hold midnight revelry. An ancient oak, The goodliest of the forest, grows beside; Alone it stands, upon a green grass plat, By the woods bounded like some little isle. It ever hath been deem’d their favourite tree, They love to lie and rock upon its leaves, And bask in moonshine. Here the woodman leads His boy, and showing him the green-sward mark’d With darker circlets, says the midnight dance Hath traced the rings, and bids him spare the tree. Fancy had cast a spell upon the place Which made it holy; and the villagers Would say that never evil thing approach’d Unpunish’d there. The strange and fearful pleasure Which fill’d me by that solitary spring, Ceased not in riper years; and now it wakes Deeper delight, and more mysterious awe.

ROBERT SOUTHEY.

SONGS OF THE PIXIES.

[The Pixies, in the superstitions of Devonshire, are a race of beings invisibly small, and harmless or friendly to man. At a small distance from a village in that county, half-way up a wood-covered hill, is an excavation, called the Pixies’ parlour. The roots of old trees form its ceiling; and on its sides are innumerable ciphers, among which the author discovered his own cipher and those of his brothers, cut by the hand of their childhood. At the foot of the hill flows the river Otter. To this place the author conducted a party of young ladies, during the summer months of the year 1793; one of whom, of stature elegantly small, and of complexion colourless yet clear, was proclaimed the Fairy Queen: on which occasion, and at which time, the following irregular ode was written.]

I.

Whom the untaught shepherds call PIXIES in their madrigal, Fancy’s children, here we dwell: Welcome, ladies! to our cell. Here the wren of softest note Builds its nest and warbles well; Here the blackbird strains his throat; Welcome, ladies! to our cell.

II.

When fades the moon all shadowy-pale, And scuds the cloud before the gale, Ere morn with living gems bedight Streaks the East with purple light, We sip the furze flowers fragrant dews, Clad in robes of rainbow hues Richer than the deepened bloom That glows on summer’s scented plume: Or sport amid the rosy gleam, Soothed by the distant-tinkling team, While lusty labour, scouting sorrow, Bids the dame a glad good-morrow, Who jogs th’ accustomed road along, And paces cheery to her cheering song.

III.

But not our filmy pinion We scorch amid the blaze of day When noon-tide’s fiery-tressed minion Flashes the fervid ray. Aye from the sultry heat We to the cave retreat, O’ercanopied by huge roots intertwined With wildest texture, blackened o’er with age; Round them their mantles green the ivies bind, Beneath whose foliage pale, Fanned by the unfrequent gale, We shield us from the tyrant’s mid-day rage.

IV.

Thither while the murmuring throng Of wild-bees hum their drowsy song, By indolence and fancy brought, A youthful bard, “unknown to fame,” Woos the queen of solemn thought, And heaves the gentle mis’ry of a sigh, Gazing with tearful eye, As round our sandy grot appear Many a rudely sculptured name To pensive mem’ry dear! Weaving gay dreams of sunny-tinctured hue We glance before his view: O’er his hushed soul our soothing witch’ries shed, And twine our faery garlands round his head.

V.

When evening’s dusky car Crowned with her dewy star Steals o’er the fading sky in shadowy flight; On leaves of aspen trees We tremble to the breeze, Veiled from the grosser ken of mortal sight. Or, haply at the visionary hour, Along our wild sequestered walk, We listen to th’ enamoured rustic’s talk; Heave with the heavings of the maiden’s breast, Where young-eyed loves have built their turtle nest; Or guide of soul-subduing power Th’ electric flash, that from the melting eye Darts the fond question and the soft reply.

VI.

Or thro’ the mystic ringlets of the vale We flash our faery feet in gamesome prank; Or, silent-sandalled, pay our defter court Circling the spirit of the western gale, Where, wearied with his flower-caressing sport, Supine he slumbers on a violet bank! Then with quaint music hymn the parting gleam, By lonely Otter’s sleep-persuading stream; Or where his wave with loud unquiet song Dashed o’er the rocky channel froths along; Or where, his silver waters smoothed to rest, The tall tree’s shadow sleeps upon his breast.

VII.

Hence! thou lingerer, light! Eve saddens into night. Mother of wildly-working dreams! we view The sombre hours, that round thee stand With down-cast eyes (a duteous band!), Their dark robes dripping with the heavy dew. Sorceress of the ebon throne! Thy power the Pixies own, When round thy raven brow Heaven’s lucent roses glow, And clouds, in wat’ry colours drest, Float in light drapery o’er thy sable vest; What time the pale moon sheds a softer ray, Mellowing the woods beneath its pensive beam: For ’mid the quiv’ring light ’tis ours to play, Aye dancing to the cadence of the stream.

VIII.