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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.

The Fairy Thrall

If any man so daring

As dig them up in spite,

He shall find their sharpest thorns
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!

235

William Allingham [1824-1889]

THE FAIRY THRALL

ON gossamer nights when the moon is low,
And stars in the mist are hiding,
Over the hill where the foxgloves grow

You may see the fairies riding.

Kling! Klang! Kling!

Their stirrups and their bridles ring,

And their horns are loud and their bugles blow,
When the moon is low.

They sweep through the night like a whistling wind,
They pass and have left no traces;

But one of them lingers far behind

The flight of the fairy faces.

She makes no moan,

She sorrows in the dark alone,

She wails for the love of human kind,

Like a whistling wind.

“Ah! why did I roam where the elfins ride,
Their glimmering steps to follow?

They bore me far from my loved one's side,
To wander o'er hill and hollow.

Kling! Klang! Kling!

Their stirrups and their bridles ring,

But my heart is cold in the cold night-tide,

Where the elfins ride."

Mary C. G. Byron [1861

FAREWELL TO THE FAIRIES

FAREWELL, rewards and fairies!

Good housewives now may say, For now foul sluts in dairies

Do fare as well as they.

And though they sweep their hearths no less Than maids were wont to do,

Yet who of late, for cleanliness,

Finds sixpence in her shoe?

Lament, lament, old abbeys,

The fairies' lost command!
They did but change priests' babies,

But some have changed your land;
And all your children sprung from thence,
Are now grown Puritanes;

Who live as changelings ever since,

For love of your demains.

At morning and at evening both
You merry were and glad;
So little care of sleep or sloth

These pretty ladies had;

When Tom came home from labor,

Or Ciss to milking rose,

Then merrily merrily went their tabor
And nimbly went their toes.

Witness those rings and roundelays
Of theirs, which yet remain,
Were footed in Queen Mary's days
On many a grassy plain;

Farewell to the Fairies

But since of late, Elizabeth,

And later, James came in, They never danced on any heath As when the time hath been.

By which we note the fairies
Were of the old profession;
Their songs were Ave-Maries,

Their dances were procession.
But now, alas! they all are dead,
Or gone beyond the seas;
Or farther for religion fled;
Or else they take their ease.

A tell-tale in their company
They never could endure;
And whoso kept not secretly
Their mirth, was punished sure;
It was a just and Christian deed
To pinch such black and blue:
Oh, how the Commonwealth doth need
Such justices as you!

237

Richard Corbet [1582-1635]

THE CHILDREN

THE CHILDREN

WHEN the lessons and tasks are all ended,
And the school for the day is dismissed,
The little ones gather around me,

To bid me good night and be kissed;
Oh, the little white arms that encircle
My neck in their tender embrace!
Oh, the smiles that are halos of heaven,
Shedding sunshine of love on my face!

And when they are gone, I sit dreaming
Of my childhood too lovely to last,—
Of joy that my heart will remember,
While it wakes to the pulse of the past,
Ere the world and its wickedness made me
A partner of sorrow and sin,

When the glory of God was about me,
And the glory of gladness within.

All my heart grows as weak as a woman's,
And the fountain of feeling will flow,
When I think of the paths steep and stony,
Where the feet of the dear ones must go,-
Of the mountains of sin hanging o'er them,
Of the tempest of fate blowing wild;—
Oh, there's nothing on earth half so holy
As the innocent heart of a child!

They are idols of hearts and of households;
They are angels of God in disguise;
His sunlight still sleeps in their tresses,
His glory still shines in their eyes;

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