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.