THE FAIRIES DANCING

I heard along the early hills,

Ere yet the lark was risen up,

Ere yet the dawn with firelight fills

The night-dew of the bramble-cup,—

I heard the fairies in a ring

Sing as they tripped a lilting round

Soft as the moon on wavering wing.

The starlight shook as if with sound,

As if with echoing, and the stars

Prankt their bright eyes with trembling gleams;

While red with war the gusty Mars

Rained upon earth his ruddy beams.

He shone alone, adown the West,

While I, behind a hawthorn-bush,

Watched on the fairies flaxen-tressed

The fires of the morning flush.

Till, as a mist, their beauty died,

Their singing shrill and fainter grew;

And daylight tremulous and wide

Flooded the moorland through and through;

Till Urdon's copper weathercock

Was reared in golden flame afar,

And dim from moonlit dreams awoke

The towers and groves of Arroar.

REVERIE

When slim Sophia mounts her horse

And paces down the avenue,

It seems an inward melody

She paces to.

Each narrow hoof is lifted high

Beneath the dark enclust'ring pines,

A silver ray within his bit

And bridle shines.

His eye burns deep, his tail is arched,

And streams upon the shadowy air,

The daylight sleeks his jetty flanks,

His mistress' hair.

Her habit flows in darkness down,

Upon the stirrup rests her foot,

Her brow is lifted, as if earth

She heeded not.

'Tis silent in the avenue,

The sombre pines are mute of song,

The blue is dark, there moves no breeze

The boughs among.

When slim Sophia mounts her horse

And paces down the avenue,

It seems an inward melody

She paces to.

THE THREE BEGGARS

'Twas autumn daybreak gold and wild,

While past St Ann's grey tower they shuffled,

Three beggars spied a fairy-child

In crimson mantle muffled.

The daybreak lighted up her face

All pink, and sharp, and emerald-eyed;

She looked on them a little space,

And shrill as hautboy cried:—

'O three tall footsore men of rags

Which walking this gold morn I see,

What will ye give me from your bags

For fairy kisses three?'

The first, that was a reddish man,

Out of his bundle takes a crust:

'La, by the tombstones of St Ann,

There's fee, if fee ye must!'

The second, that was a chesnut man,

Out of his bundle draws a bone:

'La, by the belfry of St Ann,

And all my breakfast gone!'

The third, that was a