Sometimes I meete them like a man-
Sometimes an ox, sometimes & hound;
And to a horse I turn me can,
To trip and trot about them round;
But if, to ride,

My backe they stride,
More swift than wind away I goe;
O'er hedge and lands,
Through pools and ponds,

I whirry, laughing ho, ho, ho!
When lads and lasses merry be,

With possets, and with junkets fine, Unseene of all the company,

I eat their cakes, and sip their wine;
And to make sport,

I fume and snort,

And out the candles I do blow. The maids I kiss;

They shrieke, Who's this? I answer nought but ho, ho, ho!

Yet now and then, the maids to please,
At midnight I card up their wool;
And while they sleepe and take their ease,
With wheel to threads their flax I pull.
I grind at mill

Their malt up still;

I dress their hemp, I spin their tow.
If any wake,

And would me take,

I wend me laughing ho, ho, ho!

When house or hearth doth sluttish lye,
I pinch the maidens black and blue;
The bedd-clothes from the bedd pull I,
And in their ear I bawl too-whoo!
"Twixt sleepe and wake
I do them take,

And on the clay-cold floor them throw.
If out they cry,
Then forth I fly,

And loudly laugh out ho, ho, ho!

When any need to borrow ought,

We lend them what they do require; And for the use demand we naught— Our owne is all we do desire. If to repay

They do delay,

Abroad amongst them then I go;

And night by night

I them affright,

With pinchings, dreams, and ho, ho, ho!

When lazie queans have nought to do

But study how to cog and lye, To make debate and mischief too, "Twixt one another secretly,

I marke their gloze,

And it disclose

To them whom they have wronged so. When I have done

I get me gone,

And leave them scolding, ho, ho, ho!

When men do traps and engines set

In loope holes, where the vermine creepe, Who from their foldes and houses get

Their duckes and geese, and lambes and sheepe, I spy the gin,

And enter in,

And seeme a vermin taken so;

But when they there

Approach me neare,

I leap out laughing ho, ho, ho!

By wells and rills, in meadowes green,

We nightly dance our hey-day guise; And to our fairye kinge and queene

We chaunt our moon-lighte minstrelsies. When larkes gin singe

Away we flinge,

And babes new-born steale as we go; And shoes in bed

We leave instead,

And wend us laughing ho, ho, ho!

From hag-bred Merlin's time have I
Thus nightly revelled to and fro;
And, for my prankes, men call me by
The name of Robin Good-Fellow.
Friends, ghosts, and sprites
Who haunt the nightes,

The hags and gobblins, do me know;
And beldames old

My feates have told

So vale, vale! Ho, ho, ho!

ANONYMOUS.

The Fairy Queen.
COME, follow, follow me—
You, fairy elves that be,
Which circle on the green-

Come, follow Mab, your queen!
Hand in hand let 's dance around,
For this place is fairy ground.

When mortals are at rest,
And snoring in their nest,
Unheard and unespied,
Through keyholes we do glide;
Over tables, stools, and shelves,
We trip it with our fairy elves.

And if the house be foul
With platter, dish, or bowl,
Up stairs we nimbly creep,

And find the sluts asleep;

There we pinch their arms and thighs, None escapes, nor none espies.

But if the house be swept,

And from uncleanness kept,

We praise the household maid,
And duly she is paid;
For we use, before we go,
To drop a tester in her shoe.

Upon a mushroom's head
Our table-cloth we spread;
A grain of rye or wheat
Is manchet, which we eat ;
Pearly drops of dew we drink,
In acorn-cups, filled to the brink.

The brains of nightingales,
With unctuous fat of snails,
Between two cockles stewed,
Is meat that 's easily chewed;
Tails of worms, and marrow of mice,
Do make a dish that's wondrous nice.

The grasshopper, gnat, and fly,
Serve us for our minstrelsy;
Grace said, we dance a while,
And so the time beguile;

577

And if the moon doth hide her head, The glow-worm lights us home to bed.

The Fairies' Song.

WE dance on hills above the wind,
And leave our footsteps there behind;
Which shall to after ages last,
When all our dancing days are past.

Sometimes we dance upon the shore,
To whistling winds and seas that roar;
Then we make the wind to blow,
And set the seas a-dancing too.

The thunder's noise is our delight,

And lightnings make us day by night;
And in the air we dance on high,
To the loud music of the sky.

About the moon we make a ring, And falling stars we wanton fling, Like squibs and rockets, for a toy; While what frights others is our joy.

But when we'd hunt away our cares,
We boldly mount the galloping spheres ;
And, riding so from east to west,
We chase each nimble zodiac beast.

Thus, giddy grown, we make our beds, With thick, black clouds to rest our heads, And flood the earth with our dark showers, That did but sprinkle these our bowers.

Thus, having done with orbs and sky,
Those mighty spaces vast and high,
Then down we come and take the shapes,
Sometimes of cats, sometimes of apes.

Next, turned to mites in cheese, forsooth,
We get into some hollow tooth;
Wherein, as in a Christmas hall,

We frisk and dance, the devil and all.

Song of the Fairy.

OVER hill, over dale,

Thorough bush, thorough brier, Over park, over pale,

Thorough flood, thorough fire, I do wander everywhere, Swifter than the moon's sphere; And I serve the fairy queen, To dew her orbs upon the green; The cowslips tall her pensioners be; In their gold coats, spots you see: These be rubies, fairy favorsIn those freckles live their savors. I must go seek some dewdrops here, And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

Fairy Song.

SHED no tear! oh shed no tear!
The flower will bloom another year.
Weep no more! oh weep no more!
Young buds sleep in the root's white core,
Dry your eyes! oh dry your eyes!
For I was taught in Paradise
To ease my breast of melodies-
Shed no tear.

Overhead! look overhead!
'Mong the blossoms white and red –
Look up, look up! I flutter now
On this fresh pomegranate-bough.
See me! 'tis this silvery bill
Ever cures the good man's ill.
Shed no tear! oh shed no tear!
The flower will bloom another year.
Adieu, adieu-I fly - adieu!
I vanish in the heaven's blue-

Adieu, adieu!

JOHN KEATS.

Song of Fairies.

WE the fairies, blithe and antic,

Of dimensions not gigantic,

Though the moonshine mostly keep us, Oft in orchards frisk and peep us.

Stolen sweets are always sweeter;
Stolen kisses much completer;
Stolen looks are nice in chapels:
Stolen, stolen be your apples.

When to bed the world are bobbing,
Then's the time for orchard-robbing;
Yet the fruit were scarce worth peeling
Were it not for stealing, stealing.
THOMAS RANDOLPH. (Latin.)

Translation of LEIGH HUNT.

La Belle Dame sans Merci.

OH what can ail thee, knight-at-arms! Alone and palely loitering?

The sedge has withered from the lake, And no birds sing.

Oh 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 lily 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 mead,

Full beautiful, a fairy'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 sidelong would she bend, and sing A fairy 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 wept, and sighed full sore; And there I shut her wild, wild eyes

With kisses four.

And there she lulled me asleep;

And there I dreamed - Ah! woe betide! The latest dream I ever dreamed

On the cold hill's side.

I saw pale kings and princes too

Pale warriors, death-pale were they all; They cried, "La belle dame sans merci Hath thee in thrall!"

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gaped wide;
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill's side.

579

BONNY Kilmeny gaed up the glen; But it wasna to meet Duneira's men, Nor the rosy monk of the isle to see, For Kilmeny was pure as pure could be. It was only to hear the yorlin sing, And pu' the cress-flower round the springThe scarlet hypp, and the hind berry, And the nut that hung frae the hazel-tree; For Kilmeny was pure as pure could be. But lang may her minny look o'er the wa', And lang may she seek i' the greenwood shaw; Lang the laird of Duneira blame,

And lang, lang greet or Kilmeny come hame.

When many a day had come and fled, When grief grew calm, and hope was dead,