The Downing legends : Stories in Rhyme :: :: University of Virginia Library

He found her dancing through a glade
Of moonlit turf and leafy shade,
While all around and all above
Disported airy, fairy forms
As thick as motes when summer warms
The marshy wold to life and love.
Around the dancing elfin girl
They flitted blythely to and fro
On hazy wings of lucent pearl,
Now darting swift, now wheeling slow,
As fitful breezes chanced to blow,
Or crazy eddies chanced to whirl.

Aloft, the crescent goddess flew
On slender wings of argent sheen
As though the joyous Fairy Queen
Arrived athwart the hollow blue
To find and greet her devotee.
Nor came alone, for every zone
Of sparkling night with daemons shone,
The gods who ruled the Tyrian sea
And made their names and glory known
To gay Hellene and grave Chaldee;
While ever, through the northern sphere,
The boreal spirits toiled to rear

A paradise of throbbing flame,
Incessant tumbling, yet the same,
So deftly wrought some magian name.