There are some things that entertain me more
Than men or books; and to my knowledge seem
A key of Poetry, made of magic lore
Of childhood, opening many a fabled door
Of superstition, mystery, and dream
Enchantment locked of yore.
For, when through dusking woods my pathway lies,
Often I feel old spells, as o'er me flits
The bat, like some black thought that, troubled, flies
Round some dark purpose; or before me cries
The owl that, like an evil conscience, sits,
A shadowy voice and eyes.
Then, when down blue canals of cloudy snow
The white moon oars her boat, and woods vibrate
With crickets, lo, I hear the hautboys blow
Of Elfland; and, when gold the fireflies glow,
See where the goblins hold a Fairy Fête
With many a lanthorn-row.
Strange growths, that ooze from long-dead logs and spread
A creamy fungus, where the snail, uncoiled,
And fat slug feed at morn, are Pixy bread
Made of the yeasted dew; the lichens red,
Beside these grown, are meat the Brownies broiled
Above a glow-worm bed.
The smears of silver on the webs that line
The knuckled roots, or stretch, white-wov'n, within
The hollow stump, are stains of Faery wine
Spilled on the cloth where Elfland sat to dine,
When night beheld them drinking, chin to chin,
Of th' moon's fermented shine.
What but their chairs the mushrooms on the lawn,
Or toadstools hidden under flower and fern,
Tagged with the dotting dew!—With knees updrawn
Far as his eyes, have I not come upon
Puck seated there? but scarcely round could turn
When, presto! he was gone.
And so though Science from the woods hath tracked
The Elfin; and with prosy lights of day
Unhallowed all his haunts; and, dulling, blacked
Our vision, still hath Beauty never lacked
For seers yet; who, in some wizard way,
Prove fancy real as fact.
THE WORLD OF FAERY
I
When in the pansy-purpled stain
Of sunset one far star is seen,
Like one bright drop of rain,
Out of the forest, deep and green,
O'er me a Spirit seems to lean,
The fairest of her train.
II
The Spirit, dowered with fadeless youth
Of Lay and Legend, young as when,
Close to her side, in sooth,
She led me from the marts of men,
A child, into her world, which then
To me was true as truth.
III
Her hair is like the silken husk
That holds the corn, the gloss that glows;
Her brow is white as tusk;
Her body is like some sweet rose,
And through her gossamer raiment shows
Like starlight closed in musk.
IV
She smiles at me; she nods at me;
And by her looks I am beguiled
Into the mystery
Of ways I knew when, as a child,
She led me 'mid her blossoms wild
Of faery fantasy.
V
The blossoms that, when night is here,
Become sweet mouths that sigh soft tales;
Or, each, a jeweled ear
Leaned to the elfin dance that trails
Down moonrayed cirques of haunted vales
To cricket song and cheer.
VI
The blossoms that, closed up all day,—
Primrose and poppy,—darkness opes,
Slowly, to free a fay,
Who, silken-soft, leaps forth and ropes
With rain each web that, starlit, slopes
Between each grassy spray.
VII
The blossoms from which elves are born,—
Sweet wombs of mingled scent and snow,
Whose deeps are cool as morn;
Wherein I oft have heard them blow
Their pixy trumpets, silvery low
As some bee's drowsy horn.
VIII
So was it when my childhood roamed
The woodland's dim enchanted ground,
Where every mushroom domed
Its disc for them to revel round;
Each glow-worm forged its flame,—green-drowned
In hollow snow that foamed
IX
Of lilies,—for their lantern light,
To lamp their dance beneath the moon;
Each insect of the night,—
That rasped its thin, vibrating tune,—
And owl that raised its sleepy croon,
Made music for their flight.
X
So is it still when twilight fills
My soul with childhood's memories
That haunt the far-off hills,
And people with dim things the trees,—
With faery forms that no man sees,
And dreams that no man kills.
XI
Then all around me sway and swing
The Puck-lights of their firefly train,
Their elfin revelling;
And in the bursting pods, that rain
Their seeds around my steps, again
I hear their footsteps ring.
XII
The faery feet that fall once more
Within my way;—and then I see,—
As oft I saw before,—
Her Spirit rise, who shimmeringly
Fills all my world with poetry,—
The Loveliness of Yore.
THERE ARE FAIRIES
I
There are fairies, bright of eye,
Who the wildflowers' warders are:
Ouphes, that chase the firefly,
Elves, that ride the shooting-star:
Fays, who in a cobweb lie,
Swinging on a moonbeam bar;
Or who harness bumble-bees,
Grumbling on the clover leas,
To a blossom or a breeze,
That's their fairy car.
If you care, you too may see
There are fairies.—Verily,
There are fairies.
II
There are fairies. I could swear
I have seen them busy, where
Roses loose their scented hair,
In the moonlight weaving, weaving,
Out of starlight and the dew,
Glinting gown and shimmering shoe;
Or, within a glow-worm lair,
From the dark earth slowly heaving
Mushrooms whiter than the moon,
On whose tops they sit and croon,
With their grig-like mandolins,
To fair fairy ladykins,
Leaning from the window-sill
Of a rose or daffodil,
Listening to their serenade
All of cricket music made.
Follow me, oh, follow me!
Ho! away to Faerie!
Where your eyes like mine may see
There are fairies.—Verily,
There are fairies.
III
There are fairies. Elves that swing
In a wild and rainbow ring
Through the air; or mount the wing
Of a bat to courier news
To the fairy King and Queen:
Fays, who stretch the gossamers
On which twilight hangs the dews;
Who, within the moonlight sheen,
Whisper dimly in the ears
Of the flowers words so sweet
That their hearts are turned to musk
And to honey; things that beat
In their veins of gold and blue:
Ouphes, that shepherd moths of dusk—
Soft of wing and gray of hue—
Forth to pasture on the dew.
There are fairies; verily;
Verily;
For the old owl in the tree,
Hollow tree,
He who maketh melody
For them tripping merrily,
Told it me.
There are fairies.—Verily,
There are fairies.
ON MIDSUMMER NIGHT
I
All the poppies, in their beds
Nodding crumpled, crimson heads;
And the larkspurs, in whose ears
Twilight hangs, like twinkling tears,
Sleepy jewels of the rain;
All the violets, that strain
Eyes of amaranthine gleam;
And the clover-blooms that dream
With pink baby-fists closed tight,—
They can hear upon this night,
Noiseless as the moon's white light,
Footsteps and the glimmering flight,
Shimmering flight,
Of the Fairies.
II
Every sturdy four-o'-clock,
In its variegated frock;
Every slender sweet-pea, too,
In its hood of pearly hue;
Every primrose pale that dozes
By the wall and slow uncloses
A sweet mouth of dewy dawn
In a little silken yawn,—
On this night of silvery sheen,
They can see the Fairy Queen,
On her palfrey white, I ween,
Tread dim cirques of haunted green,
Moonlit green,
With her Fairies.
III
Never a foxglove-bell, you see,
That's a cradle for a bee;
Never a lily, that's a house
Where the butterfly may drowse;
Never a rose-bud or a blossom,
That unfolds its honeyed bosom
To the moth, that nestles deep
And there sucks itself to sleep,—
But can hear and also see,
On this night of witchery,
All that world of Faerie,
All that world where airily,
Merrily,
Trip the Fairies.
It was last Midsummer Night,
In the moon's uncertain light,
That I stood among the flowers,
And, in language unlike ours,
Heard them speaking of the Pixies,
Trolls and Gnomes and Water-Nixes;
How in this flow'r's ear a Fay
Hung a gem of rainy ray;
And round that flow'r's throat had set,
Dim, a dewdrop carcanet;
Then among the mignonette
Stretched a cobweb-hammock wet,
Dewy wet,
For the Fairies.
V
Long I watched, but never a one,
Ariel, Puck, or Oberon,
Mab, or Queen Titania—
Fairest of them all they say—
Clad in morning-glory hues,
Did I glimpse among the dews.
Only once I thought the torch
Of that elfin-rogue and arch,
Robin Goodfellow, afar
Flashed along a woodland bar—
Bright, a jack-o'-lantern star,
A green lamp of firefly spar,
Glow-worm spar,
Loved of Fairies.
THE DANCE OF THE FAIRIES
On the glimmering coppice,
From her shadowy hair,
Long, silvery poppies
Of moon-litten air
The Night hath flung there.
In the fern-fronded hollow
The fireflies stream,
Uncertainly follow,
With lanterns of gleam,
Some spirit or dream.
The forest is fragrant;
The night-hazes swirl
And trail,—through the vagrant
Deep ferns that unfurl,—
Faint footsteps of pearl.
From hill and from valley,
Where the moon is at home;
From rocks,—musically,—
Where singing streams comb
Wild tresses of foam;
With a ripple and twinkle
Of luminous arms,
And footfalls that tinkle
The darkness, in swarms
Of flower-like forms:
We speed to the revel
From bloom and from brier,
With locks that dishevel,
And feet, like the fire,
Winged wild with desire.
Like the wind on the mountain,
We circle and dance;
Like the foam of the fountain,
That sings of romance,
We glimmer and glance.
Swift, swift we go swinging
Down the slanted moonbeam,
In spirals faint flinging
A rainbow-rayed gleam
On sward and on stream.
You may hear, like a murmur,
The swirl of our hair;
Our footfall; no firmer
Than leaves on the air
When branches blow bare.
To men who are favored
In spiritual wise,
Whose hearts have not quavered
To see us, we rise
And doff all disguise.
Come away then, come hither,
In the moon-blossomed night!
Ere the star-flowers wither,
And Morning, the white,
Reaps, mows them with light.
Come hither, where singing
Sounds softer than tears,
Or kisses, sweet clinging,
Or music one hears
With memory's ears.
Come join us, whose kisses
Are waiting for you;
Come, catch at our tresses,
And dance through the dew!
Come away, and pursue!
Come, come to the coppice,
The violet ridge;
The torrent, whose top is
A rainbow,—a bridge
We tread like the midge.—
Come, mortal, come hither!
Come dance with your dreams,
Ere the golden spark wither
Of the glow-worm that gleams
Like a star in still streams.
THE CHANGELING
In the night I heard the sea;
Saw the round moon, white as wool,
Or a bloom in Faerie,
Rise above the hawthorn-tree,
White and wonderful,
Weird and wonderful.
Through the door there came to me
Breezy whispers, fragrant as
Wafts that rock the honey-bee,
Cradled sweet in Arcady,
In the bluebelled grass,
In the rose-strewn grass.
Then I saw them; suddenly;
Three red caps against the moon;—
And three voices whispered me,
"We have come to dance for thee,
Sing for thee a tune,
Sing an elfin tune."
They were Fairies, Fairies three:
Nearer to my crib they drew,
Singing all the time to me,
Till mine eyes closed dreamily,
Closed, and naught I knew,
And no more I knew.
While I slept I heard the three
Whispering round my baby there,
White as moonlit ivory,
In its crib of ebony,
All my joy and care,
All my love and care.
Now I sit here, as you see,
And my heart is all bereft,
Sighing, singing wearily
To this strange thing on my knee,
This wild thing they left,
Changeling that they left.
THE ELF-QUEEN
You ask me why I wandered wide
When Summer sighed o'er dying June?—
To see the Fairy People ride
Beneath the moon.
Wild poppies hedged a hawthorne copse,
Where glow-worms hung dim lamps of gold;
A sudden whisper bowed their tops,
And then, behold!
Between the poppies and the mead
I saw the Fairies riding down:
One fair-faced Fairy in the lead
Crowned with a crown.
The night was ringing with their reins,
So loud the cricket hushed its song;
Bells up and down their horses' manes
Swung sweet along.
And whistles, that took all the wind
With music when they shook their manes;
So that the fields, before, behind,
Rang with sweet strains.
And as their bridles chiming swung,
The night seemed cured of every qualm;
And my sick heart, so wild of tongue,
Was almost calm.
The steeds they rode were fairy steeds,
Of filmy form and gossamer green;
And every elf was clad in weeds
Of silken sheen.
Above, a beam of silver light
Beat time to their wild fairy tune,
And danced and glanced,—an elfin white
Not of the moon.
They were so small the harebell's blue
Had helmeted each tiny head,
Save that fair Fay, who, tall as two,
The Fairies led.
Dark tresses floated from a tire
Of diamond sparks that snapped with light;
And all her white sark seemed of fire
Shimmering the night.
I would have thrown me at her feet
And told her of my grief and pain;
And she, perhaps, had helped me meet
My love again.
Alas! a cock crew far away,
A long-necked cry; and, swift as thought,
The Elf-Queen and her company
Passed into naught.
SONG OF THE ELF
I
Where the poppies, with their shields,
Sentinel
Forest and the harvest fields,
In the bell
Of a blossom, fair to see,
There I stall the bumblebee,
My good stud;
There I stable him and hold,
Harness him with hairy gold;
There I ease his burly back
Of the honey and its sack
Filched from bloom and bud.
II
Where the glow-worm lights its lamp,
There I lie;
Where, above the grasses damp,
Moths go by;
Now within the fussy brook,
Where the waters wind and crook
Round the rocks,
I go sailing down the gloom
Straddling light a wisp of broom;
Or, beneath the owlet moon,
Trip it to the cricket's tune
Tossing back my locks.
III
Ere the crowfoot on the lawn
Lifts its head,
Or the glow-worm's light be gone,
Dim and dead,
In a cobweb-hammock I
Swing between two ferns and lie
Hid away;
Where the drowsy musk-rose blows
And a sleepy runnel flows,
In the land of Faery,
There I rock, where none can see,
All the summer day.
AN ELF SWASHBUCKLER
Ho, my bullies, lift a tune
To Queen Mab, and, come, make merry,
By a mushroom in the moon,
White as bud of berry!
Gentlemen, come! take your grog!
Each one in his cap and mantlet:
Who refuses is a dog!—
He must lift my gantlet!
Look! my gaberdine how brave!
And my tunic, ouphen yellow!
One a bat's-wing lately gave,
And a frog its fellow.
And a moth's-head grew this fine
Feather of my beetle-bonnet;
See, my gnat-sting dagger's shine
Hath its blood still on it.
Faith! this ring I wear, I swear,
'Twas Queen Mab who gave it: studded,
As you see, with rubies rare—
Eyes of spiders blooded.
Doubt me, sirs, and by my blade!—
Sirrahs, a good stabbing hanger!
From a hornet's stinger made!—
You may dread my anger!
Fill the lichen pottles up,
Honey pressed from hearts of roses:
Cheek by jowl, up with each cup,
Till we hide our noses.
Good, sirs!—Marry!—'Twas the cock!—
Hey, away! the moon's lost fire!—
Ho! the cock! our dial and clock—
Hide beneath this brier!
ON THE EVE OF ST. JOHN
(Scandinavian)
Dizzily round,
On the elf-hills, white in the mellow moonlight,
To a sweet, unholy, ravishing sound
Of wizard voices from underground,
Their mazy dance the Elle-maids wound
On St. John's Eve.
Beautiful white,
Like a wreath of mist by the starbeams kissed,
Their frail, sweet faces bloomed out of the night,
With floating tresses of firefly light,
That puffed like foam to the left and the right,
On St. John's Eve.
Fitfully there
They danced like the daughters of starlit waters,—
But I saw what a mockery all of them were,
With their hollow bodies, when the moonlit air
Rayed out of their eyes with a glow-worm glare,
On St. John's Eve.
I turned my feet
To the river's banks: in the rush-flowers' ranks
I heard the Necken their songs repeat:
A music all made of the water's beat,
Of moss and of whispering winds that meet,
On St. John's Eve.
They called my name;
And I saw them there, in their beauty rare,
On the moonlit waves whence the music came,
With their harps of gold, and their locks of flame
Blown over pale brows, sans sin or blame,
On St. John's Eve.
'Twas nearing morn
When I turned me home; and a wizen'd gnome,
A Nis, all gray with flailing the corn,
And strong with the scent of byre and barn,
Scowled at me under the haunted thorn,
On St. John's Eve.
To end it all,
As I passed the hill by the ruined mill,
The hill rose up on pillars tall,
Crimson pillars that ranked a hall,
Where the Dwarfs and the Trolls were holding a ball,
On St. John's Eve.
THE NIXIES
Deep down, beneath the waves,
Great emerald-curving caves
Dark-domed above it,
Dim-walled with pearl and gold
Glimmers their city old—
Hast thou heard of it?—
Where, through the long green nights, the spangling spars
Twinkle like misty stars.
Where the wind-ripple rays,
And the white water sprays
Over the rocks,
Sitting, they comb their hair;
Singing, with fingers fair
Braiding their locks;
While round their loveliness of naked limbs
The moon's gold glamour swims.
Or, on some stormy night,
Seen through the glow-worm light
Haunting the sands,
Thou canst behold them drift
Wild thro' the foam, and lift
Pale arms and hands;
Or, in the lightning's leap, along the lake,
Dance in the tempest's wake.
Singing: "Come join our dance!
Come, while the lightnings glance,
Or when the moon
Spills all her flowers of light
At the dark feet of night;
And soon, ah, soon,
Within our shadowy halls thou shalt forget
Earth's fever and its fret."
THE WATER-FAIRY
Stars above her, stars beneath,
White she rose, as white as death,
Where the waters glassed the splendor
Of a thousand thousand stars,
Twinkling where the lilies slender
Rocked above the ripple-bars.
Slow she oared a shining shoulder
To a blossom-crested boulder.
With slim fingers, long and milky,
From the wave and water-lilies,
Up the rock she drew her silky
Beauty, wild as any rill is
Flashing from a hilly height.
Sitting, dripping in the night,
Sweet she sang unto the lilies,
Sang unto the listening lilies,
Till arose the wool-white moon
In the silken hush of heaven;
Then she wreathed her brow with seven
Lily-buds, all sweet with June;
Belted, wreathed with lilies seven,
Then again upon the boulder,
Dark locks on a milk-white shoulder,
Wild she sang; a wilder ditty
To the wool-white moon;
To the lilies and the moon:
Beautiful and without pity,
Sang, and sang an elfin tune;
Till a youth, who wandered far,
Saw her sitting like a star;
Heard her singing to the moon;
Found her sitting, starry white,
On the flower-crested boulder,
Dark locks on a milky shoulder,
In the low moon's lilied light,
'Neath the wool-white moon....
And the creature wrapped her hair
Round his white throat, sitting there
Singing, smiled into his eyes,
While she wrapped her raven hair
Slowly round his throat; and then
Laughed and whispered to the skies,
Kissed him once and then again;
Smiled; and left him stark and strangled
In the water-lilies tangled,
Staring up, with open eyes,
At the moon with open eyes.
THE MORNING-GLORIES
They swing from the garden-trellis
In Ariel-airy ease;
And their aromatic honey
Is sought by the earliest bees.
The rose, it knows their secret,
And the jessamine also knows:
And the rose told me the secret,
That the jessamine told the rose.
And the jessamine said: At midnight,
Ere the red cock woke and crew,
The Fays of Queen Titania
Came here to bathe i' the dew.
And the yellow moonlight glistened
On braids of elfin hair:
And fairy feet on the flowers
Fell lighter than any air.
And their petticoats, gay as bubbles,
They hung up, every one,
On the morning-glory's tendrils,
Till their moonlight bath were done.
But the barn-cock crew too early,
And the Fairies fled in fear,
Leaving their petticoats, one and all,
Like blossoms hanging here.
THE GLADIOLES
As tall as the lily, as rich as the rose,
And deep as the bloom of the hollyhock,
They lift their blossoms in furbelows
Of flame that the warm winds rock.
And some are red as the humming-bird's throat,
And some are pied as the butterfly's wings,
And each is shaped like an elfin coat,
Or a goblin cap that swings.
Freaked with fire or red as blood,
They nod at me in my garden old,
Each flower a pixy helm or hood,
Lace-lined with fairyland gold.
For you know the goblins that come at dusk,—
Whose firefly eyes you have seen,—each one,
(When is sprinkled the dew and scattered the musk,)
Hangs here his cap when done.
THE TIGER-LILY
Tall in his tawny turban,
A sultan 'mid his bands,
In my garden, old and urban,
The tiger-lily stands.
The poppies there that glisten,
Whose gaudy garments glow,
Are eunuchs who guard and listen
Round his seraglio
Of roses, myrrhed and musky;
Some whiter than a dove,
And others, deep and dusky,
His odalisks of love.
Circassian-white and slender,
His dancing-girls and slaves,
To the August-lilies tender,
His haughty hand he waves.
While he watches them, nothing missing,
In her bower of bloom on high,
His favorite rose is kissing
A Bedouin butterfly.
THE MOTH, THE ROSE, AND THE PINK
White as snow I saw it sink
On the pungent-petaled pink
Through the moonlit dusk;
Moth? or fairy? or, who knows?—
Ghost, perhaps, of some dead rose
'Mid the roses' musk.
Then it seemed I heard a sweet
Tinkle as of elfin feet
Underneath the blooms,
Where one rose hung desolate,
Sick of heart and filled with hate,
Dead with its perfumes.
"Thou, for whom I died to-day,"
So I seemed to hear it say,
"Listen, lovely pink:
Vampire-like, unto thy heart
Now I send, through my white art,
My pale ghost to drink."
GLAMOUR
With fall on fall, from wood to wood,
The brook pours mossy music down—
Or is it, in the solitude,
The murmur of a Faery town?
A town of Elfland filled with bells
And holiday of hurrying feet:
Or traffic now, whose small sound swells,
Now sinks from busy street to street.
Whose Folk I often recognize
In wingéd things that hover round,
Who to men's eyes assume disguise
When on some Faery errand bound.—
The bee, that haunts the touch-me-not,
Big-bodied, making braggart din,
Is elfin brother to that sot,
Jack Falstaff of the Boar's Head Inn.
The dragon-fly, whose wings of black
Are mantle for his garb of green,
Is Ancient to this other Jack,
Another Pistol, long and lean.
The butterfly, in royal tints,
Is Hal, mad Hal in cloth of gold,
Who passes these, as once that Prince
Passed his companions boon of old.
FAERY MORRIS
I
The winds are whist; and, hid in mist,
The moon hangs o'er the wooded height:
The bushy bee, with unkempt head,
Hath made the sunflower's disk his bed,
And sleeps half-hid from sight.
The owlet makes us melody—
Come dance with us in Faery,
Come dance with us to-night.
II
The dew is damp; the glow-worm's lamp
Blurs in the moss its tawny light:
The great gray moth sinks, half-asleep,
Where, in an elfin-laundered heap,
The lily-gowns hang white.
The crickets make us minstrelsy—
Come dance with us in Faery,
Come dance with us to-night.
With scents of heat, dew-chilled and sweet,
The new-cut hay smells by the bight:
The ghost of some dead pansy bloom
The butterfly seems, in the gloom,
Its pied wings folded tight.
The world is drowned in fantasy—
Come dance with us in Faery,
Come dance with us to-night.