20 THE CULPRIT FAY. His sides are broken by spots of shade, The stars are on the moving stream, In an eel-like, spiral line below; And nought is heard on the lonely hill But the cricket's chirp, and the answer shrill Of the gauze-winged katy-did; And the plaint of the wailing whip-poor-will, Ever a note of wail and wo, Till morning spreads her rosy wings, And earth and sky in her glances glow. III. 'Tis the hour of fairy ban and spell: The wood-tick has kept the minutes well, 21 16 THE CULPRIT FAY. He has counted them all with click and stroke, And he has awakened the sentry elve Who sleeps with him in the haunted tree, To bid him ring the hour of twelve, And call the fays to their revelry; Twelve small strokes on his tinkling bell- Hither, hither, wing your way! 'Tis the dawn of the fairy day." IV. They come from beds of lichen green, They creep from the mullen's velvet screen; From the silver tops of moon-touched trees, Where they swung in their cobweb hammocks high, And rocked about in the evening breeze; Some from the hum-bird's downy nest They had driven him out by elfin power, And, pillowed on plumes of his rainbow breast, Had slumbered there till the charmed hour; Some had lain in the scoop of the rock, With glittering ising-stars inlaid And some had opened the four-o'clock, And stole within its purple shade. 22 THE CULPRIT FAY. And now they throng the moonlight glade, Above—below-on every side, Their little minim forms arrayed In the tricksy pomp of fairy pride! V. They come not now to print the lea, A scene of sorrow waits them now, For an Ouphe has broken his vestal vow; He has loved an earthly maid, And left for her his woodland shade; He has lain upon her lip of dew, And sunned him in her eye of blue, For this the shadowy tribes of air To the elfin court must haste away :· |