THE FAIRIES’ PASSAGE

I
Tap, tap, tap, rap! “Get up, Gaffer Ferryman.”
“Eh! who is there?” The clock strikes three.
“Get up, do, Gaffer! You are the very man
We have been long—long—longing to see.”
The Ferryman rises, growling and grumbling,
And goes fum-fumbling, and stumbling, and tumbling,
Over the wares in his way to the door.
But he sees no more
Than he saw before,
Till a voice is heard—“O Ferryman, dear!
Here we are waiting, all of us here!
We are a wee, wee colony, we;
Some two hundred in all, or three.
Ferry us over the river Lee
Ere dawn of day,
And we will pay
The most we may,
In our own wee way!”
II
“Who are you? Whence came you? What place are you going to?”
“Oh, we have dwelt over-long in this land;
The people get cross, and are growing so knowing, too!
Nothing at all but they now understand;
We are daily vanishing under the thunder
Of some huge engine or iron wonder;
That iron, ah!—it has entered our souls!”
“——Your souls? O gholes,
You queer little drolls!
Do you mean——?” “Good Gaffer, do aid us with speed,
For our time, like our stature, is short indeed!
And a very long way we have to go,
Eight or ten thousand miles or so,
Hither and thither, and to and fro;
With our pots and pans,
And little gold cans;
But our light caravans
Run swifter than man’s!”
III
“Well, well, you may come!” said the Ferryman, affably;
“Patrick, turn out, and get ready the barge!”
Then again to the Little Folk—“Though you seem laughably
Small, I don’t mind, if your coppers be large.”
Oh, dear! what a rushing, what pushing, what crushing
(The watermen making vain efforts at hushing
The hubbub the while) there followed these words!
What clapping of boards!
What strapping of cords!
What stowing away of children and wives,
And platters, and mugs, and spoons, and knives!
Till all had safely got into the boat,
And the Ferryman, clad in his tip-top coat,
And his wee little Fairies were safely afloat!
Then ding! ding! ding!
And kling! kling! kling!
How the coppers did ring
In the tin pitcherling!
IV
Off, then, went the boat, at first very pleasantly,
Smoothly, and so forth; but after a while
It swayed and it swagged this and that way, and presently
Chest after chest, and pile after pile,
Of the Little Folks’ goods began tossing and rolling,
And pitching like fun, beyond Fairy controlling!
O Mab! if the hubbub were great before,
It was now some two or three million times more;
Crash! went the wee crocks, and the clocks, and the locks
Of each little wee box were stove in by hard knocks;
And then there were oaths, and prayers, and cries—
“Take care!”—“See there!”—“Oh, dear! my eyes!”
“I am killed!”—“I am drowned!”—with groans and sighs;
Till to land they drew;
“Yeo-ho! Pull to!
Tiller-rope, thro’ and thro’!”
And all’s right anew.
V
“Now, jump upon shore, ye queer little oddities,
Eh! what is this?—Where are they, at all?
Where are they, and where are their tiny commodities?
Well! as I live!” He looks blank as a wall,
Poor Ferryman! Round him, and round him he gazes,
But only gets deeplier lost in the mazes
Of utter bewilderment! All, all are gone—
And he stands alone,
Like a statue of stone,
In a doldrum of wonder. He turns to steer,
And a tinkling laugh salutes his ear
With other odd sounds—“Ha! ha! ha! ha!
Fol, lol; zidziddel—quee, quee-bah! bah!
Fizzigig—giggidy! phsee! sha! sha!”
“O ye thieves, ye thieves! ye rascally thieves!”
The good man cries. He turns to his pitcher,
And there, alas! to his horror perceives,
That the Little Folks’ mode of making him richer
Has been to pay him with—withered leaves.
James Clarence Mangan