Elphin: Ouph: Fay
126
COME UNTO THESE YELLOW SANDS
(Ariel singing)Come unto these yellow sands,
And then take hands:
Curtsied when you have, and kist,
The wilde waves whist:
Foote it featly heere, and there,
And sweete Sprights the burthen beare.
Harke, harke, bowgh wawgh:
The watch-dogges barke, bowgh wawgh.
Hark, hark, I heare,
The straine of strutting Chanticlere
Cry Cockadidle-dowe.
William Shakespeare
127
THE ELVES’ DANCE
Round about, round about
In a fair ring-a,
Thus we dance, thus we dance
And thus we sing-a,
Trip and go, to and fro
Over this green-a,
All about, in and out,
For our brave Queen-a.
128
BY THE MOON
By the Moone we sport and play,
With the night begins our day:
As we daunce the deaw doth fall,
Trip it little urchins all:
Lightly as the little Bee,
Two by two, and three by three:
And about go we, and about go wee.
“I do come about the coppes,
Leaping upon flowers toppes:
Then I get upon a flie,
Shee carries me above the skie:
And trip and goe.”
“When a deawe drop falleth downe,
And doth light upon my crowne,
Then I shake my head and skip,
And about I trip.
Two by two, and three by three:
And about go we, and about go wee.”
Thomas Ravenscroft
129
FOR A MOCKING VOICE
Who calls? Who calls? Who?
Did you call? Did you?—
I call! I call! I!
Follow where I fly.—
Where? O where? O where?
On Earth or in the Air?—
Where you come, I’m gone!
Where you fly, I’ve flown!—
Stay! ah, stay! ah, stay,
Pretty Elf, and play!
Tell me where you are—
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
Eleanor Farjeon
130
WHERE THE BEE SUCKS
Where the Bee sucks, there suck I,
In a Cowslip’s bell I lie,
There I cowch when Owles do crie;
On the Batt’s back I doe flie
After Sommer merrily.
Merrily, merrily, shall I live now
Under the blossom that hangs on the Bow.
William Shakespeare
131
ECHO
How see you Echo? When she calls I see
Her pale face looking down through some great tree,
Whose world of green is like a moving sea,
That shells re-echo.
I see her with a white face like a mask,
That vanishes to come again; damask
Her cheek, but deeply pale,
Her eyes are green,
With a silver sheen,
And she mocks the thing you ask.
“O Echo!” (hear the children calling) “are you there?”...
“Where?”...
When the wind blows over the hill,
She hides with a vagrant will,
And call you may loud, and call you may long,
She lays finger on lip when the winds are strong,
And for all your pains she is still.
But when young plants spring, and the chiff-chaffs sing,
And the scarlet capped woodpecker flies through the vale,
She is out all day,
Through the fragrant May,
To babble and tattle her Yea and Nay.
“O Echo!” (still the children call) “Where are you? where?”...
“Air....”
Viscountess Grey
132
THE SPLENDOUR FALLS
The splendour falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story:
The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.
O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, farther going!
O sweet and far from cliff and scar
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying:
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.
O love, they die in yon rich sky,
They faint on hill or field or river:
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow for ever and for ever.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
133
THE FAIRIES
Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We daren’t go a-hunting
For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owl’s feather!
Down along the rocky shore
Some make their home,
They live on crispy pancakes
Of yellow tide-foam;
Some in the reeds
Of the black mountain-lake,
With frogs for their watch-dogs,
All night awake.
High on the hill-top
The old King sits;
He is now so old and gray
He’s nigh lost his wits.
With a bridge of white mist
Columbkill he crosses,
On his stately journeys
From Slieveleague to Rosses;
Or going up with music
On cold starry nights,
To sup with the Queen
Of the gay Northern Lights.
They stole little Bridget
For seven years long;
When she came down again
Her friends were all gone.
They took her lightly back,
Between the night and morrow,
They thought that she was fast asleep,
But she was dead with sorrow.
They have kept her ever since
Deep within the lake,
On a bed of flag-leaves,
Watching till she wake.
By the craggy hill-side,
Through the mosses bare,
They have planted thorn-trees
For pleasure here and there.
Is any man so daring
As to dig one up in spite,
He shall find the thornies set
In his bed at night.
Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We daren’t go a-hunting
For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owl’s feather!
William Allingham
134
OVERHEARD ON A SALTMARSH
Nymph, nymph, what are your beads?
Green glass, goblin. Why do you stare at them?
Give them me.
No.
Give them me. Give them me.
No.
Then I will howl all night in the reeds,
Lie in the mud and howl for them.
Goblin, why do you love them so?
They are better than stars or water,
Better than voices of winds that sing,
Better than any man’s fair daughter,
Your green glass beads on a silver ring.
Hush, I stole them out of the moon.
Give me your beads, I want them.
No.
I will howl in a deep lagoon
For your green glass beads, I love them so.
Give them me. Give them.
No.
Harold Monro
135
THE FAIRY THORN
“Get up, our Anna dear, from the weary spinning wheel;
For your father’s on the hill, and your mother is asleep:
Come up above the crags, and we’ll dance a highland reel
Around the fairy thorn on the steep.”
At Anna Grace’s door ’twas thus the maidens cried,
Three merry maidens fair in kirtles of the green;
And Anna laid the rock74 and the weary wheel aside,
The fairest of the four, I ween.
They’re glancing through the glimmer of the quiet eve,
Away in milky wavings of neck and ankle bare;
The heavy-sliding stream in its sleep song they leave,
And the crags in the ghostly air.
And linking hand and hand, and singing as they go,
The maids along the hill-side have ta’en their fearless way,
Till they come to where the rowan trees in lonely beauty grow
Beside the Fairy Hawthorn grey.
The hawthorn stands between the ashes tall and slim,
Like matron with her twin grand-daughters at her knee;
The rowan berries cluster o’er her low head grey and dim
In ruddy kisses sweet to see.
The merry maidens four have ranged them in a row,
Between each lovely couple a stately rowan stem,
And away in mazes wavy, like skimming birds they go,
Oh, never carolled bird like them!
But solemn is the silence of the silvery haze
That drinks away their voices in echoless repose,
And dreamily the evening has stilled the haunted braes,
And dreamier the gloaming grows.
And sinking one by one, like lark-notes from the sky
When the falcon’s shadow saileth across the open shaw,
Are hushed the maidens’ voices, as cowering down they lie
In the flutter of their sudden awe.
For, from the air above, and the grassy ground beneath,
And from the mountain-ashes and the old Whitethorn between,
A power of faint enchantment doth through their beings breathe,
And they sink down together on the green.
They sink together silent, and stealing side to side,
They fling their lovely arms o’er their drooping necks so fair.
Then vainly strive again their naked arms to hide,
For their shrinking necks again are bare.
Thus clasped and prostrate all, with their heads together bowed,
Soft o’er their bosom’s beating—the only human sound—
They hear the silky footsteps of the silent fairy crowd,
Like a river in the air, gliding round.
Nor scream can any raise, nor prayer can any say,
But wild, wild, the terror of the speechless three—
For they feel fair Anna Grace drawn silently away,
By whom they dare not look to see.
They feel their tresses twine with her parting locks of gold,
And the curls elastic falling, as her head withdraws;
They feel her sliding arms from their trancèd arms unfold,
But they dare not look to see the cause:
For heavy on their senses the faint enchantment lies
Through all that night of anguish and perilous amaze;
And neither fear nor wonder can ope their quivering eyes
Or their limbs from the cold ground raise,
Till out of Night the Earth has rolled her dewy side,
With every haunted mountain and streamy vale below;
When, as the mist dissolves in the yellow morning-tide,
The maidens’ trance dissolveth so.
Then fly the ghastly three as swiftly as they may,
And tell their tale of sorrow to anxious friends in vain—
They pined away and died within the year and day,
And ne’er was Anna Grace seen again.
Samuel Ferguson
136
THE QUEEN OF ELFLAND
True Thomas lay oer yond grassy bank,
And he beheld a ladie gay,
A ladie that was brisk and bold,
Come riding oer the fernie brae.
Her skirt was of the grass-green silk,
Her mantel of the velvet fine,
At ilka tett of her horse’s mane
Hung fifty silver bells and nine.
True Thomas he took off his hat,
And bowed him low down till his knee:
“All hail, thou mighty Queen of Heaven!
For your peer on earth I never did see.”
“O no, O no, True Thomas,” she says,
“That name does not belong to me;
I am but the queen of fair Elfland,
And I’m come here for to visit thee....
“But ye maun go wi me now, Thomas,
True Thomas, ye maun go wi me,
For ye maun serve me seven years,
Thro weel or wae as may chance to be.
“Then harp and carp, Thomas,” she said,
“Then harp and carp alang wi me;
But it will be seven years and a day
Till ye win back to yere ain countrie.”
She turned about her milk-white steed,
And took True Thomas up behind,
And aye wheneer her bridle rang,
The steed flew swifter than the wind.
For forty days and forty nights
He wade thro red blude to the knee,
And he saw neither sun nor moon,
But heard the roaring of the sea.
O they rade on, and further on,
Until they came to a garden green:
“Light down, light down, ye ladie free,
Some of that fruit let me pull to thee.”
“O no, O no, True Thomas,” she says,
“That fruit maun not be touched by thee,
For a’ the plagues that are in hell
Light on the fruit of this countrie.
“But I have a loaf here in my lap,
Likewise a bottle of claret wine,
And now ere we go farther on,
We’ll rest a while, and ye may dine.”
When he had eaten and drunk his fill:—
“Lay down your head upon my knee,”
The lady sayd, “ere we climb yon hill
And I will show you fairlies three.
“O see not ye yon narrow road,
So thick beset wi thorns and briers?
That is the path of righteousness,
Tho after it but few enquires.
“And see not ye that braid braid road,
That lies across yon lillie leven?
That is the path of wickedness,
Tho some call it the road to heaven.
“And see not ye that bonny road,
Which winds about the fernie brae?
That is the road to fair Elfland,
Where you and I this night maun gae
“But Thomas, ye maun hold your tongue,
Whatever you may hear or see,
For gin ae word you should chance to speak,
You will neer get back to your ain countrie.”
He has gotten a coat of the even cloth,
And a pair of shoes of velvet green,
And till seven years were past and gone
True Thomas on earth was never seen.
137
LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI
O, what can ail thee, knight at arms,
Alone and palely loitering;
The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.
O, what can ail thee, knight at arms,
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel’s granary is full,
And the harvest’s done.
I see a lilly on thy brow
With anguish moist and fever-dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.
I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful—a faery’s child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.
I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She looked at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.
I set her on my pacing steed
And nothing else saw all day long;
For sideways would she lean, and sing
A faery’s song.
She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild and manna dew;
And sure in language strange she said—
I love thee true.
She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she gazed and sighed full sore:
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.
And there she lullèd me asleep,
And there I dreamed, ah woe betide,
The latest dream I ever dreamed
On the cold hill side.
I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all:
They cry’d—“La belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!”
I saw their starved lips in the gloam
With horrid warning gapèd wide,
And I awoke, and found me here
On the cold hill side.
And this is why I sojourn here
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.
John Keats
138
SABRINA
“Sabrina fair
Listen where thou art sitting
Under the glassie, cool, translucent wave,
In twisted braids of Lillies knitting
The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair,
Listen for dear honour’s sake,
Goddess of the silver lake,
Listen and save!...
By all the Nymphs that nightly dance
Upon thy streams with wily glance,
Rise, rise, and heave thy rosie head
From thy coral-pav’n bed,
And bridle in thy headlong wave,
Till thou our summons answered have.
Listen and save!”
“By the rushy-fringèd bank,
Where grows the Willow and the Osier dank,
My sliding Chariot stayes,
Thick set with Agat, and the azurn sheen
Of Turkis blew, and Emrauld green
That in the channell strayes,
Whilst from off the waters fleet
Thus I set my printless feet
O’re the Cowslips Velvet head,
That bends not as I tread,
Gentle swain at thy request
I am here.”
John Milton
139
NOW THE HUNGRY LION ROARS
“Now the hungry Lyon rores,
And the Wolfe behowls the Moone:
Whilst the heavy ploughman snores,
All with weary taske fordone.
Now the wasted brands doe glow,
Whil’st the scritch-owle scritching loud,
Puts the wretch that lies in woe
In remembrance of a shrowd.
Now it is the time of night
That the graves, all gaping wide,
Every one lets forth his spright,
In the Church-way paths to glide.
And we Fairies, that do runne
By the triple Hecate’s teame,
From the presence of the Sunne,
Following darknesse like a dreame,
Now are frollicke; not a Mouse
Shall disturbe this hallowed house.
I am sent with broome before,
To sweep the dust behinde the doore.”
“Through the house give glimmering light,
By the dead and drowsie fier;
Everie Elfe and Fairie spright
Hop as light as bird from brier!...”
William Shakespeare
140
THE FAIRIES FEAST
... Awn.Who feasts tonight?
Some Elves.Prince Olbin is truth-plight
To Rosalind, daughter of the Faery Queen.
Other Elves.She’s a mannikin changeling; her name shows it.
Other Elves.We have heard tell; that she as dream is fair.
Awn.I’ve heard old Paigle say, fays gave for her
To humans, in the cradle, Moonsheen bright.
Other Elves.And Eglantine should wedded be this night,
To Ivytwine, in the laughing full moon.
Moth.I was there and saw it: on hoar roots,
All gnarled and knotty, of an antique oak,...
Crowned, some with plighted frets of violets sweet;
Other, with flower-cups many-hewed, had dight
Their locks of gold; the gentle faeries sate:
All in their watchet cloaks: were dainty mats
Spread under them, of dwarve-wives rushen work:
And primroses were strewed before their feet.
They at banquet sate, from dim of afternoon...
(Enter more elves running.)
Howt.Whence come ye foothot?
One of the new-come Elves.O Awn, O Howt!
Not past a league from hence, lies close-cropped plot,
Where purple milkworts blow, which conies haunt,
Amidst the windy heath. We saw gnomes dance
There; that not bigger been than harvest mice.
Some of their heads were deckt, as seemed to us,
With moonbeams bright: and those tonight hold feast:
Though in them there none utterance is of speech.
Awn.Be those our mothers’ cousins, dainty of grace:
But seld now, in a moonlight, are they seen.
They live not longer than do humble been.
Elves.We saw of living herb, intressed with moss,
Their small wrought cabins open on the grass.
Awn.Other, in gossamer bowers, wonne underclod.
Elves.And each gnome held in hand a looking glass;
Wherein he keeked, and kissed oft the Moons face.
Awn.Are they a faery offspring, without sex,
Of the stars’ rays.
Elves.They’d wings on their flit feet;
That seemed, in their oft shining, glancing drops
Of rain, which beat on bosom of the grass:
Wherein be some congealed as adamant.
We stooped to gaze (a neighbour tussock hidus,)
On sight so fair: their beauty being such,
That seemed us it all living thought did pass.
Yet were we spied! for looked down full upon us,
Disclosing then murk skies, Moons clear still face.
In that they shrunk back, and clapped tó their doors....
Charles M. Doughty