GOBLIN MARKET. M ORNING and evening Maids heard the goblins cry: "Come buy our orchard fruits, Come buy, come buy: Apples and quinces, Lemons and oranges, Plump unpecked cherries, Wild free-born cranberries, In summer weather, Our grapes fresh from the vine, Damsons and bilberries, Sweet to tongue and sound to eye; Come buy, come buy.” Evening by evening Among the brookside rushes, Laura bowed her head to hear, Crouching close together In the cooling weather, With clasping arms and cautioning lips, With tingling cheeks and finger-tips. "Lie close," Laura said, Pricking up her golden head : "We must not look at goblin men, We must not buy their fruits : Who knows upon what soil they fed Their hungry thirsty roots?" "Come buy," call the goblins Hobbling down the glen. "O," cried Lizzie, "Laura, Laura, You should not peep at goblin men." Covered close lest they should look; And whispered like the restless brook: "Look, Lizzie, look, Lizzie, Down the glen tramp little men. One hauls a basket, One bears a plate, One lugs a golden dish Of many pounds' weight. In each ear, shut eyes and ran: One had a cat's face, One whisked a tail, One tramped at a rat's pace, One crawled like a snail, One like a wombat prowled obtuse and furry, One like a ratel tumbled hurry-scurry. She heard a voice like voice of doves Cooing all together: They sounded kind and full of loves Laura stretched her gleaming neck |