FAIRY-LAND

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! 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 grey 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 lakes, On a bed of flag-leaves, Watching till she wakes. By the craggy hill-side, Through the mosses bare, They have planted thorn-trees For pleasure here and there. Is any man so daring As dig one 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!

Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves, And ye that on the sands with printless foot Do chase the ebbing Neptune and do fly him When he comes back; you demi-puppets[2], that By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make Whereof the ewe not bites, and you whose pastime Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice To hear the solemn curfew....

Come unto these yellow sands, And then take hands: Courtsied when you have, and kiss’d,— The wild waves whist[3],— Foot it featly[4] here and there; And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear. Hark, hark! Bow, wow, The watch-dogs bark: Bow, wow, Hark, hark! I hear The strain of strutting chanticleer Cry, Cock-a-diddle-dow!

Where the bee sucks, there suck I: In a cowslip’s bell I lie; There I couch when owls do cry. On the bat’s back I do fly After summer merrily. Merrily, merrily, shall I live now, Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.

Over hill, over dale, Thorough bush, thorough brier, Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire, I do wander everywhere, Swifter than the moonè’s sphere; And I serve the fairy queen, To dew her orbs[5] upon the green. The cowslips tall her pensioners be; In their gold coats spots you see; Those be rubies, fairy favours, In those freckles live their savours: I must go seek some dewdrops here, And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.

You spotted snakes with double tongue, Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen; Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong; Come not near our fairy queen. Philomel, with melody Sing in our sweet lullaby; Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby! Never harm, Nor spell nor charm, Come our lovely lady nigh; So, good night, with lullaby. Weaving spiders, come not here; Hence, you long-legg’d spinners, hence! Beetles black, approach not near; Worm nor snail, do no offence. Philomel, with melody, Sing in our sweet lullaby; Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby! Never harm, Nor spell nor charm, Come our lovely lady nigh; So, good night, with lullaby.

The garden was pleasant with old-fashioned flowers, The sunflowers and hollyhocks stood up like towers; There were dark turncap lilies and jessamine rare, And sweet thyme and marjoram scented the air. The moon made the sun-dial tell the time wrong; ’Twas too late in the year for the nightingale’s song; The box-trees were clipped, and the alleys were straight, Till you came to the shrubbery hard by the gate. The fairies stepped out of the lavender beds, With mob-caps, or wigs, on their quaint little heads; My lord had a sword and my lady a fan; The music struck up and the dancing began. I watched them go through with a grave minuet; Wherever they footed the dew was not wet; They bowed and they curtsied, the brave and the fair; And laughter like chirping of crickets was there. Then all on a sudden a church clock struck loud: A flutter, a shiver, was seen in the crowd, The cock crew, the wind woke, the trees tossed their heads, And the fairy folk hid in the lavender beds.

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? At morning and at evening both, You merry were and glad, So little care of sleep or sloth Those pretty ladies had. When Tom came home from labour, Or Cis to milking rose, Then 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; 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: O how the commonwealth doth need Such justices as you!

Toll the lilies’ silver bells! Oberon, the King, is dead! In her grief the crimson rose All her velvet leaves has shed. Toll the lilies’ silver bells! Oberon is dead and gone! He who looked an emperor When his glow-worm crown was on. Toll the lilies’ silver bells! Slay the dragonfly, his steed; Dig his grave within the ring Of the mushrooms in the mead.

Bonny Kilmeny gaed[6] 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[7] sing, And pull the blue cress-flower round the spring; To pull the hip and the hindberrye[8], And the nut that hung frae the hazel-tree; For Kilmeny was pure as pure could be. But lang may her minnie[9] look o’er the wa’, And lang may she seek in the greenwood shaw; Lang the Laird o’ Duneira blame, And lang, lang greet[10] e’er Kilmeny come hame! When many a day had come and fled, When grief grew calm, and hope was dead, When mass for Kilmeny’s soul had been sung, When the bedesman had prayed and the dead-bell rung; Late, late in a gloaming, when all was still, When the fringe was red on the westlin[11] hill, The wood was sere, the moon i’ the wane, The reek[12] of the cot hung o’er the plain, Like a little wee cloud in the world its lane[13]; When the ingle[14] lowed[15] with an eery gleam, Late, late in the gloamin’, Kilmeny came hame! “Kilmeny, Kilmeny, where have you been? Lang hae we sought baith holt and dene; By linn[16], by ford, and green-wood tree, Yet you are halesome and fair to see. Where gat you that joup[17] of the lily sheen? That bonny snood[18] of the birk[19] sae green? And these roses, the fairest that ever were seen? Kilmeny, Kilmeny, where have you been?” Kilmeny look’d up with a lovely grace, But nae smile was seen on Kilmeny’s face; As still was her look, and as still was her ee, As the stillness that lay on the emerald lea, Or the mist that sleeps on a waveless sea. For Kilmeny had been she knew not where, And Kilmeny had seen what she could not declare. Kilmeny had been where the cock never crew, Where the rain never fell, and the wind never blew. But it seem’d as the harp of the sky had rung, And the airs of heaven play’d round her tongue, When she spake of the lovely forms she had seen, And a land where sin had never been; A land of love and a land of light, Withouten sun, or moon, or night; The land of vision it would seem, And still an everlasting dream. ...... They lifted Kilmeny, they led her away, And she walk’d in the light of a sunless day; The sky was a dome of crystal bright, The fountain of vision, and fountain of light: The emerald fields were of dazzling glow, And the flowers of everlasting blow. Then deep in the stream her body they laid, That her youth and beauty might never fade; And they smiled on heaven, when they saw her lie In the stream of life that wander’d by. And she heard a song, she heard it sung, She kenn’d not where; but so sweetly it rung, It fell on the ear like a dream of the morn: “O blest be the day Kilmeny was born!” ...... To sing of the sights Kilmeny saw, So far surpassing nature’s law, The singer’s voice would sink away, And the string of his harp would cease to play. But she saw till the sorrows of man were by, And all was love and harmony; Till the stars of heaven fell calmly away, Like the flakes of snow on a winter day. ...... When seven lang years had come and fled, When grief was calm and hope was dead; When scarce was remembered Kilmeny’s name, Late, late in a gloaming Kilmeny came hame! And O, her beauty was fair to see, But still and steadfast was her ee! Her seymar[20] was the lily flower, And her cheek the moss-rose in the shower; And her voice like the distant melody That floats along the twilight sea. But she loved to raike[21] the lanely glen, And keepit away frae the haunts of men; Her holy hymns unheard to sing, To suck the flowers, and drink the spring. But wherever her peaceful form appear’d, The wild beasts of the hill were cheer’d; The wolf play’d blythly round the field, The lordly bison low’d and kneel’d; The dun deer woo’d with manner bland, And cower’d aneath her lily hand. And all in a peaceful ring were hurl’d; It was like an eve in a sinless world! When a month and a day had come and gane, Kilmeny sought the green-wood wene; There laid her down on the leaves sae green, And Kilmeny on earth was never mair seen.