Minions of the Moon :: :: University of Virginia Library

About the time when bluebells swing
Their elfin belfries for the bee
And in the fragrant House of Spring
Wild Music moves; and Fantasy
Sits weaving webs of witchery:
And Beauty's self in silence leans
Above the brook and through her hair
Beholds her face reflected there,
And wonders what the vision means—
About the time when bluebells swing,

I found a path of glooms and gleams,
A way that Childhood oft has gone,
That leads into the Wood of Dreams,
Where, as of old, dwell Fay and Faun,
And Faërie dances until dawn;
And Elfland calls from her blue cave,
Or, starbright, on her snow-white steed,
Rides blowing on a silver reed
That Magic follows like a slave—
I found a path of glooms and gleams.

And in that Wood I came again
On old enchantments.—There, behold,
I saw them pass, a kingly train,
Fable and Legend, wise and old,
In garb of glimmering green and gold:

While far away forgotten bells
And horns of Faërie made faint sound;
And all the anxious heaven around
And earth grew gossamered with spells,
And whirled with ouphen feet again.

And, lo, I saw the ancient Hall
Of Story rise, where Dreams conspire
With Words and Music to enthrall
The Yearning of the soul's desire,
Holding it fast with charméd fire:
Where Glamour bows in servitude;
And, Lord of Ecstasy and Awe,
Song, with his henchmen, Lore and Law,
Sits 'mid the mighty Brotherhood
Of Beauty in that twilight Hall.

Then far away the forest rang
With something more than bugle calls:
A voice, a summons wild that sang,
As if Adventure in his halls
Awoke; or Daring on the walls
Shouted to Youth to take his stand
Before the wizard-guarded tower
Where Love, within her secret bower,
Beckons him on with moon-white hand—
Why was it that the forest rang?

And then I knew: It was my Sprite,—
My Witch, whose spells had led me far:
Who held me with the old delight,
And drew my soul beyond the bar
Of all the real, like a star.

How long ago, how far that day,
Since first I met her in the wild!
And on my face her white face smiled,
And my child fears she soothed away!
Ay! ay! 'twas she—my airy Sprite!

And on my heart again the hour
Flashed as when first she gazed at me;
Her loveliness clothed on with power
And joy and godlike mystery,
A portion of Earth's ecstasy:
Again I felt, in ways unknown,
Down in my soul a memory waken
Of some far kiss once given and taken,
That made me hers, her very own,
Once every year for one brief hour. ...

A Dryad laughed among the trees;
A Naiad flashed with limbs a-spark;
A Satyr reached rough arms to seize;
A Faun foot danced adown the dark
To music of rude pipes of bark:
Earth crowded all its shapes around,
Myths, bare and beautiful of breast,
'Mid whom pursuing passion pressed,
Wild, Pan-like, leaping from the ground.—
A Dryad laughed among the trees.

Then Elfdom, in a starlike rain,
To right and left rose blossom-slim;
And urged its Joy in twinkling train
Down many a flower and rainbow rim
Of moonbeam.—Fancy sat with Whim:

And from the ferns gleamed glowworm eyes,
Where Faërie held its Court; and, green,
An impish spirit ran between,
With Puck-like laughter of surprise,
And firefly flickerings, wild as rain.

Then suddenly a light that grew,
And in the light—my Witch! who stood,
As crystal-evident as dew,
Weaving a spell that made the wood
Take on a dream's similitude:—
And, lo, through radiance and perfume
I saw Romance, crowned with a crown,
And Chivalry come riding down,
On two great steeds, all gold and gloom,
Round whom the splendor grew and grew. ...

And of the Dream the forest dreams
Again my soul becomes a part:
Again my magic armor gleams;
Again beneath its steel my heart
Throbs all impatient for the start.
Again the towers of Time and Chance
Loom grimly, where, forever fair,
Wrapped in the glory of her hair,
Beauty lies bound by Necromance,
The Beauty that we know in dreams.

And, as before, again I smile,
Delaying still to break the spell,
Facing the gateway of old Guile,
Where hangs the slug-horn that shall knell
Defiance to the Courts of Hell.—

What though around me, torch on torch,
The eyes of Danger, glowering, wait!
What though Death heaves a sword of hate
Beneath the gate's enchanted arch!—
I raise the horn again and smile.

What now, O Night, shall make me pause?—
I face the darkness of the tomb,
That stirs with clank of iron claws,
And threatenings of gigantic doom,—
The monster in the granite gloom.
And then full in the face of Night
I hurl my challenge, blast on blast—
The drawbridge thunders; and the vast
Echoes with batlike wings in flight.—
There is no thing to give me pause.

My heart sings, bounding to its quest.
I mount the stairs to where she sleeps,
A rose upon her brow and breast,
And in her long hair's golden deeps
The glory of the youth she keeps.—
I kneel again; I clasp her there;
I kiss her mouth; but, lo, behold!
Her beauty crumbles into mold,
And all the castle goes in air,
And with it all my heart's high quest. ...

And in the wood I wake again.
The Dream is gone as is the child,
Who followed far in rapture's train,
And by a vision was beguiled,—
The Witch, the Presence undefiled,

Whose call still sounds o'er holt and hollow,
An elfin bugle, in the morn;
And in the eve a faery horn,
Bidding the dreaming heart to follow,—
The child in man that hears again. ...

For what we dream is never lost.—
Dreams mold the soul within the clay.
The rapture and the pentecost
Of beauty shape our lives some way:
They are the beam, the guiding ray,
That Nature dowers us with at birth,—
And, like the light upon the crown
Of some dark hill, that towers down,
Point us to Heaven, not to Earth,
Above the world where dreams are lost.

MINIONS OF THE MOON

I

Through leafy windows of the trees
The full moon shows a wrinkled face,
And, trailing dim her draperies
Of mist from place to place,
The Twilight leads the breeze.

And now, far-off, beside a pool,
Dusk blows a reed, a guttural note;
Then sows the air around her full
Of twinkling disc and mote,
And moth-shapes soft as wool.

And from a glen, where lights glow by,
Through hollowed hands she sends a call,
And Solitude, with owlet cry,
Answers: and Evenfall
Steps swiftly from the sky.

And Mystery, in hodden gray,
Steals forth to meet her: and the Dark
Before him slowly makes to sway
A jack-o'-lantern spark
To light him on his way.

The grasshopper its violin
Tunes up, the katydid its fife;

The beetle drums; the grig makes din,
Informing Elfin life
Night's revels now begin.

And from each side along the way
Old Witchcraft waves a batlike hand,
And summons forth the toadstool gray
To point the path to Faeryland,
Where all man's longings stray.

II

The snail puts forth two staring horns
And down the toadstool slides;
The wind sits whispering in the thorns
Of one unseen who hides:
Of him, the Sprite,
With glowworm light,
Who watchmans secrets of the Night.

The bee sleeps in the berry-bloom;
The bird dreams on its nest;
The moon-moth swoons through drowsed perfume
Upon a fragrant quest:
It seeks for him,
The Pixy slim,
Who tags with wet each wildflower's rim.

The milkwort leans an ear of pink
And listens for the dew;
The fireflies in the wildrose wink
That seems to listen too:

For her, the Fay,
With sword-like ray,
Who opens buds at close of day.

The moon, that dares not come too near,
Keeps to the highest hill;
The little brook it seems, for fear
Of something strange, is still:
The Mystery,
It well may be,
That talks to it of Faërie.

THE MOON IN THE WOOD

I

From hill and hollow, side by side,
The shadows came, like dreams, to sit
And watch, mysterious, sunset-eyed,
The wool-winged moths and bats aflit,
And the lone owl that cried and cried.

And then the forest rang a gong,
Hoarse, toadlike; and from out the gate
Of darkness came a sound of song,
As of a gnome that called his mate,
Who answered in his own strange tongue.

And all the forest leaned to hear,
And saw, from forth the entangling trees,
A naked spirit drawing near,
A glimmering presence, whom the breeze
Kept whispering,—“Forward! Have no fear.”

II

The woodland, seeming at a loss,
Afraid to breathe, or make a sound,
Poured, where her silvery feet should cross,
A dripping pathway on the ground,
And hedged it in with ferns and moss.

And then the silence sharply shook
A cricket tambourine; and Night
From out her musky bosom took
A whippoorwill flute, and, lost to sight
Sat piping to a wildwood brook.

Until from out the shadows came
A furtive foot, a gleam, a glow;
And with a lamp of crystal flame
The spirit stole, as white as snow,
And put the firmament to shame.

III

Then up and down vague movements went,
As if the faeries sought an herb;
And here and there a bush was bent,
A wildflower raised: the wood-pool's curb
Was circled with a scarf of scent.

And deep within her house of weeds
Old Mystery hung a glowworm lamp,
And decked her hair with firefly beads,
And sate herself 'mid dew and damp,
And crooned a love-song to the reeds.

Then through the gates of solitude,
Where Witchery her shuttle plied,
The Spirit entered, white and nude—
And where she went, on every side,
Dreams followed through the solitude.

THE MOON SPIRIT

One night I lingered in the wood
And saw a spirit-form that stood
Among the wildflowers. Like the dew
It twinkled; partly wind and scent;
Then down a moonbeam there it blew,
And like a gleam of water went.
Or was it but a dream that grew
Out of the wind and dew and scent.

Could I have seized it, made it mine,
As poets have the thought divine
Of Nature, then I too might know,—
(Like them who once wild magic bound
Into their rhymes of long-ago),—
Such ecstasy of earth around
As never yet held heart before
Or language for its beauty found.

LOVELINESS

How good it is, when overwrought,
To seek the woods and find a thought,
That to the soul's attentive sense
Delivers much in evidence
Of truths for which man long has sought—
Truths, which no vulture years contrive
To rob the heart of, holding it
To all the glory infinite
Of beauty that shall aye survive.

Still shall it lure us. Year by year
Addressing now the spirit ear
With thoughts, and now the spirit eye
With visions that like gods go by,
Filling the mind with bliss and fear—
In spite of modern man who mocks
The Loveliness of old, nor minds
The ancient myths, gone with the winds,
And dreams that people woods and rocks.

THE NIGHT-RAIN

Tattered, in ragged raiment of the rain,
The Night arrives.—Outside the window there
He stands and, streaming, taps upon the pane;
Or, crouching down beside the cellar-stair,
Letting his hat-brim drain,
Mutters, black-gazing through his trickling hair.

Then on the roof with cautious feet he treads,
Whispering a word into the windy flues;
And all the house, huddling its flowerbeds,
Looks, dark of face, as if it heard strange news,
Hugging the musky heads
Of all its roses to its sides of ooze.

Now in the garden, with a glowworm lamp,
Night searches, letting his black mantle pour;
Treading the poppies down with heavy tramp,
Thudding the apple, sodden to its core,
Into the dripping damp,
From boughs the wet loads, dragging more and more.

Then at the barn he fumbles, gropes his way,
Through splashing pools; and, seeping, enters in
The stalls and creeps among the bedding hay,
Burying him moistly to his clammy chin,
While near him, brown and gray,
The dozing cattle make a drowsy din.

The martin-box, poled high above the gate,
He pushes till the fluttering fledglings wake,
Wondering what bird it is that comes so late:
Then to the henhouse door he gives a shake;
Or, like a thief await,
Leans listening softly with black heart aquake.

Then with his ragged cloak flung back he goes,
With flickering lantern, where the stream o'erflowed,
Breathing wet scents of wayside weed and rose,
And guttural music of the frog and toad;
A firefly-light, that glows,
Green in his hand to guide him on his road.

And doffing then, upon the wooded hill,
His hat of cloud, a little while he stands,
Hearkening in silence to the leaping rill;
Then, stooping low, he lifts in azure hands
A great gold daffodil—
The moon—and pins it in his cloak's blown bands.

THE DREAM CHILD

There is a place (I know it well)
Where beech trees crowd into a gloom,
And where a twinkling woodland well
Flings from a rock a rippling plume,
And, like a Faun beneath a spell,
The silence breathes of beam and bloom.

And here it was I met with her,
The child I never hoped to see,
Who long had been heart's-comforter,
And soul's-companion unto me,
Telling me oft of myths that were,
And of far faerylands to-be.

She stood there smiling by the pool,
The cascade made below the rocks;
Innocent, naked, beautiful,
The frail gerardia in her locks,
A flower, elfin-sweet and cool,
Freckled as faery four-o'-clocks.

Her eyes were rain-bright; and her hair
An amber gleam like that which tips
The golden leaves when Fall comes fair;
And twin red berries were her lips;
Her beauty, pure and young and bare,
Shone like a star from breasts to hips.

Oft had I seen her thus, of old,
In dreams, where she played many parts:
A form, possessing in its mold
The high perfection of all Arts,
With all the hopes to which men hold,
And loves for which they break their hearts.

And she was mine. Within her face
I read her soul. ... Then, while she smiled,
A sudden wind swept through the place
And—she was gone. My heart beat wild;
The leaves shook and, behold, no trace
Was there of her, the faery child.

Only a ray of gold that hung
Above the water; and a bough,
Rain-bright and berried, low that swung:
Yet, in my heart of hearts, somehow,
I felt (I need not search among
The trees) that she was hiding now.

ROMANCE

Oh, go not to the lonely hill,
That from its heart pours one clear well!
There is a witch who haunts it still,
Who would undo you with her spell.—
Oh, go not to the lonely hill.

There was a youth who, with his book,
Would dream for hours and hours alone
Beneath the boughs, beside the brook,
Seated upon a mossy stone,
His gaze upon his wonder-book.

The scent of lilies there is cool,
Hanging in many a wild raceme
Around a glimmering woodland pool,
From whence flows down a shadowy stream.—
The scent of lilies there is cool. ...

Between his eyes and unturned page
He saw her bright face, smiling, nod:
And knew her of another Age,
A pagan Age that mocked at God.—
She seemed to rise from out the page,

Clothed on with dreams and forest scent,
And light and wind, that breathed and blew;
A water-gleam, that came and went,
She seemed, who round her presence drew
A portion of the light and scent.

With eyes of crystal gray she smiled
Into his eyes and murmured words
Of love that made his pulse beat wild,—
His heart to flutter like a bird's
The fowler snares—while slow she smiled.

And then she kissed him; smoothed his hair;
And bade him come. And he was fain
To follow her, yea, anywhere,
And as her slave for aye remain,—
When she had kissed his mouth and hair.

And he arose and took her hand,
And followed as one does in dreams:
And, lo, they came to Faeryland,
And danced an hour by its streams,
And sat an hour, hand in hand.

When he returned to Earth, no place
Remembered him that once had known:
Save for the memory of her face
Here in the world he walked alone,
His mortal heart held by that place.

And so he sits where all may see,
And tells his tale, that none believes,
Like you, who now depart from me,
Who leave me with a soul that grieves
For her my eyes no more shall see.

Nay; go not to that hill, lest you
Should fall beneath that Faery's spell,
Like me, and evermore pursue
A dream of beauty, loved too well,
That holds you and escapes from you.

THE WOOD GOD

I heard his step upon the moss;
I glimpsed his shadow in the stream;
And thrice I saw the brambles toss
Wherein he vanished like a dream.

A great beech aimed a giant stroke
At my bent head, in mad alarm;
And then a chestnut and an oak
Struck at me with a knotted arm.

The brambles clutched at me; and fear
For one swift instant held me fast—
Just long enough to let me hear
His windlike footsteps vanish past.

The brushwood made itself more dense,
And looped my feet with green delay;
And, threatening every violence,
The rocks and thorns opposed my way.

But still I followed; strove and strained
In spite of all the wood devised
To hold me back, and on him gained—
The deity I had surprised.

The genius of the wood, whose flute
Had led me far; at first, to see
The imprint of his form and foot
Upon the moss beneath the tree.

A bird piped warning and he fled:
I saw a gleam of gold and green:
The woodland held its breath for dread
That its great godhead would be seen.

Could I but speak him face to face,
And for a while his joy behold,
What visions there might then take place,
What myst'ries of the woods be told!—

And well I knew that he was near
By that soft sound the water made
Upon its rock; and by the fear
The wind unto the leaves betrayed.

And by the sign bough made to bough,
The secret signal, brusque and brief,
That said, “On guard! He's looking now!”
And pointed at me every leaf.

Then suddenly the way lay wide;
The brambles ceased to clutch and tear;
And even the grim trees shrunk aside,
And motioned me,—“He's there! he's there!”

A ruse!—I knew it for a ruse,
To thwart my search at last.—But I
Had been a fool to follow clues,
And let the god himself pass by.

And then the wood in mighty mirth
Laughed at me, all its bulk a-swing;
It roared and bent its giant girth
As if it'd done a clever thing.

But I,—on whom its scorn was spent,—
Said not a word, but turned away:
To me this truth was evident—
No man may see the gods to-day.

THE WOODLAND WATERFALL

Rock and root and fern and flower—
They had led him for an hour
To the inmost forest, where,
In a hollow, green with moss,
That the deep ferns trailed across,
Fell a fall, a presence fair,
Syllabling to the air,
Charming with cool sounds the bower.

It was she he used to know
In some land of Long Ago,
Some far land of Yesterday,
Where he listened to her words,
And she lured him, like the birds,
To her lips; and in his way
Danced a bubble or rainbow-ray,
Or a minnow's silvery bow.

Round him now her arms she flung,
And, as dripping there she clung,
In her gaze of green and gold
He beheld a beauty gleam,
And the shadow of a dream,—
That to no man hath been told,—
Like a Faery tale of old,
Rise up glimmering, ever young.

As his form to hers she drew
In his soul, it seemed, he knew
She was daughter of a king,
Hate-transformed into a fall
By a witch; long-held in thrall,
And condemned to sigh and sing
Till some mortal find the ring,
Charm, that would the spell undo.

In a pool of spray and foam,
With a crystal-bubble dome,
Suddenly he saw the charm:
Newt-like, coiling, there it lay—
Could he seize it he would stay,
Master all! and, white and warm,
Clasp the princess in his arm,
Lead her to her palace home!

He would free her; share her crown.—
So he thought; and, bare and brown,
Clove the water at a blow.—
But, behold, a mottled form,
Like a newt's, stretched out an arm,
Crimson-freckled, from below;
And before his heart could know,
With wild laughter drew him down.

THE DEAD DREAM

Between the darkness and the day
As, lost in doubt, I went my way,
I met a shape, as faint as fair,
With star-like blossoms in its hair:
Its body, which the moon shone through,
Was partly cloud and partly dew:
Its eyes were bright as if with tears,
And held the look of long-gone years;
Its mouth was piteous, sweet yet dread,
As if with kisses of the dead:
And in its hand it bore a flower,
In memory of some haunted hour.

I knew it for the Dream I'd had
In days when life was young and glad.
Why had it come with love and woe
Out of the happy Long-Ago?—
Upon my brow I felt its breath,
Heard ancient words of faith and death,
Sweet with the immortality
Of many a fragrant memory:
And to my heart again I took
Its joy and sorrow in a look,
And kissed its eyes and held it fast,
And bore it home from out the past—
My Dream of Beauty and of Truth,
I dreamed had perished with my Youth.

THE SEA FAERY

She was strange as the orchids that blossom
And glimmer and shower their balm
And bloom on the tropical ocean,
That crystals round islands of palm:
And she sang to and beckoned and bound me
With beauty immortal and calm.

She was wild as the spirits that banner,
Auroral, the ends of the Earth,
With polar processions, that battle
With Darkness; or, breathing, give birth
To Silence; and herd from the mountains
The icebergs, gigantic of girth.

She was silver as sylphids who blend with
The morning the pearl of their cheeks:
And rosy as spirits whose tresses
Trail golden the sunset with streaks:
An opaline presence that beckoned
And spake as the sea-rapture speaks:—

“Come with me! come down in the ocean!—
Yea, leave this dark region with me!—
Come! leave it! forget it in thunder
And roll of the infinite sea!
Come with me!—No mortal bliss equals
The bliss I shall give unto thee.” ...

And so it was then that she bound me
With witchcraft no mortal divines,
While softly with kisses she drew me,
As the moon draws a dream from the pines,
Down, down to her cavern of coral,
Where ever the sea-serpent twines.

And ever the creatures, whose shadows
Bulk huge as an isle on the sight,
Swim cloud-like and vast, without number,
Around her who leans, like a light,
And smiles at me sleeping, pale-sleeping,
Wrapped deep in her mermaiden might.

MY LADY OF THE BEECHES

Here among the beeches
Winds and wild perfume,
That the twilight pleaches
Into gleam and gloom,
Build for her a room.

Her whose Beauty cometh,
Misty as the morn,
When the wild-bee hummeth,
At its honey-horn,
In the wayside thorn.

As the wood grows dimmer,
With the drowsy night,
Like a moonbeam glimmer
Here she walks in white,
With a firefly light.

Moths around her flitting,
Like a moth she goes,
Here a moment sitting
By this wilding rose,
With my heart's repose.

Every bud and flower
From her look has caught
Something of that hour
While she stood in thought
Gazing into naught.

Every bough that dances
Has assumed the grace
Of her form; and fancies,
Flashed from eye and face,
Brood about the place.

Every wind that flutters,
Says what is expressed
Of her heart and utters
Sounds of peace and rest
Pulsing in her breast.

And the water, shaken
In its plunge and poise,
To itself has taken
Quiet of her voice,
And restrains its joys.

Would that these could tell me
What and whence she is,—
She, who doth enspell me,
Fill my soul with bliss
Of her spirit-kiss.

Though the heart beseech her,
And the soul implore,
Who is it may reach her,
Safe behind the door
Of all woodland lore?

THE WOOD ANEMONE

The thorn-tree waved a bough of May
And all its branches bent
To indicate the wildwood way
The Wind and Sunbeam went.

A wildrose here, a wildrose there
Lifted appealing eyes,
And looked the path they did not dare
Reveal in other wise.

Wild parsley tossed a plume of gold
And breathed so sweet a sigh,
I guessed the way, it never told,
Which they had hastened by.

I traced the Beam, so swift and white,
In many a woodland place
By wildflower footprints of its flight
And gleamings of its grace.

I knew its joy had filled with song
The high heart of the bird,
That rippled, rippled all day long
In dells that hushed and heard.

I knew the Wind with flashing feet
Had charmed the brook withal,
Who in its cascades did repeat
The music of that call.

All were in league to help me find,
Or tell to me the way,
Which now before me, now behind,
These two had gone in play.

I could not understand how these
Could hide so near to me,
When by the whispering of the trees
I knew the wood could see.

Until, all breathless with its joy,
The Wind, that could not rest,
Ran past me, like a romping boy,
And bade me look my best.

And there I saw them clasped in bliss
Beneath an old beech tree:
And here's the flower born of their kiss—
This wild anemone.

PIXY WOOD

The vat-like cups of the fungus, filled
With the rain that fell last night,
Are casks of wine that the elves distilled
For revels the moon did light.
The owlet there with her “Who-oh-who,”
And the frog with his “All is right,”
Could tell a tale if they wanted to
Of what took place last night.

In that hollow beech, where the wood decays,
Their toadstool houses stand;
A little village of drabs and grays,
Cone-roofed, of Faeryland.
That moth, which gleams like a lichen there,
Is one of an elfin band,
That whisks away if you merely dare
To try to understand.

The snail, that slides on that mushroom's top,
And the slug on its sleepy trail,
Wax fat on the things the elves let drop
At feast in the moonlight pale.
The whippoorwill, that grieves and grieves,
If it would, could tell a tale
Of what took place here under the leaves
Last night on the Dreamland Trail.

The trillium there and the Mayapple,
With their white eyes opened wide,
Of many a secret sight could tell
If speech were not denied:
Of many a pixy revelry
And rout on which they've spied,
With the hollow tree, which there you see
Opens its eye-knots wide.

THE GRAY SISTERS

What is that which walks by night
In flying tatters of leaves and weeds,
When the clouds rush by like dæmon steeds,
And the moon is a jack-o'-lantern light
Low in the pool's dark reeds?—
What is that, like a soul who sinned?—
Is it a witch? or the Autumn wind?

What is that which sits and glowers
Under the trees by the forest pool?
With a cloak of moss whence the raindrops drule,
Chilling the air with a sense of showers
And touch of the cold toadstool:
What is that, with its breath of gloom?—
Is it a witch? or the Fall perfume?

What is that in a mantle of gray,
With rags, like water, that wreathe and wind?
That gropes the forest, as if to find
A path, long-lost, on its midnight way,
Shadowy, old and blind:
What is that, so white and whist?—
Is it a witch? or the Autumn mist?

You may have met them; you may have heard;
As I have heard them; as I have met:

The three gray sisters of wind and wet
Each with a spell or a cryptic word
Working her magic yet:
The three gray sisters, the witches old,
Daughters of Autumn, who haunt the wold.

THE FAERY PIPE

Woods of wonder, wonder ways,
Where the Faery Piper plays,
Bidding all to up and follow
Over haunted hill and hollow,
And behold again the Fays
Whirling in a moonlit maze.

He whom once our Childhood knew,
Piper of the Dream-come-true;
Who with music reared us towers
Of Adventure, where the Hours
Wove enchantments; peopled too
With the deeds of Daring-do.

Oh, to hear the pipe he blows
Saying all of Let's-Suppose!
Who once bade us brave the danger
Of the Dragon, for the stranger,—
Princess,—who, to tell her woes,
Dropped from her high Tower a rose.

She, for whom we would have died,
To whose Tower the pipe was guide,
And from Witchcraft's power delivered.—
How the dungeon-tower shivered
When our trumpet blast defied,
Challenging its giant pride!—

Oh, again to stand and see
Vision grow reality!
Hear the Elfland bugles blowing,
And, beyond all seeing, knowing,
Gallop to our empery
There again in Faërie!

Oh, again to leave regret,
Fever of the world and fret!
Tears and loss and work and worry!
For the Land of Song and Story,
For that Land none can forget,
Of which Thought is minion yet. ...

Woods of wonder, wonder ways,
Where the Faery Piper plays,
Saying, “Quit your melancholy!
Leave the world of work and folly!
Follow me to where the Fays
Trip it as in Childhood's days.”

THE FOREST OF OLD ENCHANTMENT

Squaw-berry, bramble, Solomon's-seal,
And rattlesnake-weed make wild the place:
You seem to feel that a Faun will steal
Or leap before your face. ...
Is that the reel of a Satyr's heel,
Or the brook in its headlong race?

Yellow puccoon and the blue-eyed grass,
And briars a riot of bloom:
And now from the mass of that sassafras
What is it shakes perfume?—
A Nymph, who has for her looking-glass
That pool in the mossy gloom?

Mile on mile of the trees and vines,
And rock and fern and root:
What is it pines where the wild-grape twines?
A dove? or Pan's own flute?—
And there!—what shines into rosy lines?
A flower? or Dryad's foot?

White-plantain, bluet, and, golden-clear,
The crowfoot's earth-bound star:
Now what draws near to the spirit ear?—
A god? or a sunbeam-bar?—
And what do we hear with a sense of fear?—
Diana? or winds afar?

If we but thought as the old Greeks thought,
And knew what the ancients knew,
Then Beauty sought of the soul were caught
And breathed into being too;
And out of naught were the real wrought,
And the dream of the world made true.

THE HOUSE OF MOSS

(Built by a Child in a deep Forest.)

How fancy romped and played here,
Building this house of moss!
A faery house, the shade here
And sunlight gleam across;
And how it danced and swayed here,
A child with locks atoss!

I pause to gaze and ponder;
And, whisk! I seem to know
How, in that house and under,
The starry elf-lamps glow,
And pixy dances sunder
The hush when night falls slow.

Oh, that a witch had willed it
That those child-dreams come true!
With which the child-heart filled it
While 'neath glad hands it grew,
And, dim, amort, it builded
Far better than it knew.

For Middleage,—that wandered
And found it hidden here,
And, pausing, gazed and pondered
Knowing a mystery near—
A dream, its childhood squandered,
Or lost, gone many a year.

Had not Time so distorted
My vision, haply I
Had also viewed, wild-hearted,
Dreams which that child drew nigh,
And to the world imparted
Strange news none dare deny.

ROSE AND REDBIRD

A Faerytale.

I had the strangest dream last night:—
I dreamed the poppies, red and white,
That over-run the flower-bed,
Changed to wee women, white and red,
Who, jeweled with the twinkling wet,
Joined hands and danced a minuet.

And there, beside the garden walk,
I thought a red-rose stood at talk
With a black cricket; and I heard
The cricket say, “You are the bird,
Red-crested, who comes every day
To sing his lyric roundelay.”

The rose replied,—“Nay! you must know
That bird and I loved long-ago:
I am a princess, he a prince:
And we were parted ever since
The world of science made us don
The new disguises we have on.”

And then the rose put off disguise
And stood revealed before my eyes,
A faery princess; and, in black,
His tiny fiddle on his back,
An elfin fiddler, long of nose,
The cricket bowed before the rose.

A house of moss and firefly-light
Now seemed to rise within the night
Beside the tree where, bending low,
The flowers stood, a silken row,
Around the rose,—a faery band
Before the Queen of Faeryland.

And suddenly I saw the side
Of a great beech-tree open wide,

And there, behold! were wondrous things,—
Slim flower-like people bright with wings,
Who bowed before a throne of state,
Whereon the rose and redbird sate.

And then I woke; and there, behold,
Was naught except the moonlight's gold
On tree and garden; and the flowers
Safe snuggled in their beds and bowers:
The rose was gone, but where she'd stood
Lay scattered crimson of her hood.

The cricket still was at his tune
Somewhere between the dawn and moon:
And I'd have sworn it was a dream
Had I not glimpsed a glowworm gleam
And heard a chuckling in the tree,
And seen the dewdrop wink at me.

THE DANCE OF SUMMER

Summer, gowned in catnip-gray,
Goes her weedy wildwood way,
Where with rosehip-buttoned coat,
Cardinal flower-plume afloat,
With the squirrel-folk at play,

Brown September, smiling, stands,
Chieftain of the Romany bands
Of the Fall—a gypsy crew,
Glimmering in lobelia-blue,
Gold and scarlet down the lands.

Summer, with a redbird trill,
Dares him follow at her will,
There to romp in tree and vine,
Drink the sunset's crimson wine,
And on beauty feast his fill.

He his Autumn whistle takes,
And his dark hair backward shakes;
Pipes a note, and bids her on,—
Dancing like a woodland faun,—
And she follows through the brakes.

She must follow: she is bound
By the wildness of the sound.—
Is it love or necromance?—
Down the world he leads the dance,
And the woods go whirling round.

Wildly briars clutch and hold;
Branches reach out arms of gold;
Naught can stay them. Pipe, and follow
Over hill and over hollow
Till the night fall dark and cold.

Now her gown is torn in shreds,
And her gossamer veil is threads
Streaming round her nakedness;
And the flowers, at her distress,
Weep and hide their drooping heads.

Round her whirl the frightened leaves,
And the stammering water grieves;
Nut and haw the forest throws
At her as she dancing goes
To the pipe that magic weaves.

Death will have her. She must spin
Till, a skeleton, she win
To the land where Winter dwells,
Where shall end Fall's gipsy spells,
And her long white sleep begin.

A FOREST FLUTE

I heard a reed among the hills,
A woodland reed of music where,
Like madcap children, ran the rills,
Boisterous, with wildly flowing hair.

I knew it for a pipe the Spring
Tuned to the rapture in her heart,
That in the egg should shape the wing,
And in the seed the wildflower start.

And I—I followed where it blew,
And found a valley, dim and green,
A wild spot, like a drop of dew,
Hung glimmeringly two hills between.

I heard the flute, a bird-like note,
That made the place a magic well,
On which enchantment seemed to float,
A spirit in a rainbow shell.

I knew what danced there with its flute,
Unseen, a part of soul and mind:
I saw the imprint of its foot,
In many a flower of orchis-kind.

I knew it of an ancient race,
Some myth the Greeks had known of old.
Could I have spoken it face to face
Of what lost dreams I might have told!

BUBBLES

As I went through the wood, the wood,
Through fern and pimpernel,
A water fell, a water stood,
Twinkling within a dell,
And Naiad fancies, gleaming, hung
Like bubbles there the moss among.

And as I sat beside the fall
And watched a rainbow beam,
There rose a dream, a spirit tall,
Out of the woodland stream:
Bright, prismed bubbles in her hair,
She rose and smiled upon me there.

But as I gazed at her and gazed,
Dim bubbles grew her eyes;
And frail of dyes her body raised,
And vanished in the skies:
And with the spirit went my dream—
A rainbow bubble of the stream.

LOVE AND THE WIND

All were in league to capture Love—
The rock, the stream, the tree;
The very Month was leader of
The whole conspiracy.

It led Love where wild waters met,
And tree hugged close to tree;
And where the dew and sunbeam let
Their lips meet rapturously.

And then it shouted,—“Here he is,
O wild Wind in the tree!
Come, clasp him now, and kiss and kiss!
And call the flowers to see!”

And there, on every side, the wood
Rushed out in flower and tree.—
And that is how, I've understood,
The Springtime came to be.

THE DREAM IN THE WOOD

The beauty of the day put joy,
Unbounded, in the woodland's breast,
Through which the wind, like some wild boy,
Ran on and took no rest.

The little stream that made its home,
Under the spicewood bough and beech,
Hummed to its heart a song of foam,
Or with the moss held speech.

And he, whose heart was weighed with tears,
And who had come to seek a dream,
For a dim while forgot his fears,
Hearkening the wind and stream.

The wind for him assumed a form,—
A child's, with wildflowers in its hair;
It seemed to take him by the arm
To lead him far from care.

The streamlet raised a hand of spray
By every rock, and waved him on,
Whispering, “Come, take this wildwood way,
And find your dream long gone.”

And he, who heard and followed these,
Came on a secret place apart,—
And there, behold! the dream of peace
He found in his own heart.

THE FOREST OF FEAR

The cut-throat darkness hemmed me 'round:
I waited, helpless in its grasp.
The forest gave no sign or sound:
The wind was dead: no insect's rasp
I heard, nor water's gulp and gasp

Fitting its strength against a stone.
The only sound that there was made
Was my wild heart's that sobbed alone,
Knowing itself to be afraid
Of that vast wood where it had strayed.

I dared not move. There was no star
To indicate where God might be.
Night and his henchmen, without bar,
Had there assumed their empery.—
Nothing but prayer was left to me.

Around me seemed to loom the dead
Of ages past, gaunt in the gloom.
And when I heard a stealthy tread
As of one groping from the tomb,
I braced myself to meet my doom.

And then I heard a breathing low
As of a beast that seeks its prey;
And then the footstep, soft and slow,
Approached again from far away.—
I held my breath lest it betray

Me to some Death—in monstrous guise?—
With fang or talon, or a blade
Grasped in a hand of giant size?—
Or was't a fiend?—And then I prayed,
Who never yet had prayed, for aid.

I closed my eyes. My heart was still.
I did not look.—I knew it stood
Glaring upon me all its fill.—
When would it strike?—The ancient wood
Seemed waiting eager for my blood.

I prayed and prayed. The something there
Stood waiting still—a fiend from Hell
Gloating upon my soul's despair?—
This was the end, I knew too well;
It pealed within me like a bell.

And then I thought, “In spite of all,
It is but death. Earth can not go
Further than death, whate'er befall.—
With open eyes I'll take the blow,
And face to face now meet my foe.”

“My foe?”—Perhaps it was a friend.—
What whim put in my heart that thought?—
I had no friends. This was the end,
And I would face it: I was caught
In the old gin that sin had wrought.

And then I looked—I looked to see—
How could it be?—serene of eye,
A little Child beneath a tree.
A Child that glimmered starrily;
A Christ-like Child not born to die.

And overhead I saw the night
Had doffed its cowl of black, and stood
Revealed in azure and in white,
While all the staring solitude
Looked on the round moon o'er the wood.

I called the Child. It smiling came;
Undid the bonds of my despair,
And led me forth.—I said, “Your name?”—
It smiled and, gazing, answered, “Prayer.”—
And with that word went into air.

THERE ARE FAIRIES

Elfins of the Autumn night,
Gather! gather! work's to do:
There's the toadstool, plump and white,
To be lifted into view:
And the ghost-flower, like a light,
To be dight,
And washed white with moon and dew;
While the frog,
From the bog,
Watchmans us with “All is right.”

Ouphes, come help the spider spin,
Stretch his webs for mist and moon;
Rim with rounded rain, or, thin,
Curve into a frosty lune:
Lift the mushroom's rosy chin,
Help it win
Through the leaves that lie aboon;
While the cricket
In the thicket
Makes its fairy fiddle din.

Brim the lichen-cups with rain;
Blow to feather the goldenrods;
Help the touchmenots, a-strain
To explode their ripened pods,
Sow their pattering seed again;
Help to stain
Every freckled flower that nods;
While with glee,
In its tree,
Chants the owl its wild refrain.

Drop the acorn in its place;
Split and spill the chestnuts' burrs;
Trail the weeds with pixy lace
Of the moony gossamers;
And with tricksy colors trace
Form and face
Of each leaf the wildwood stirs;
While the fox,
'Mid the rocks,
Barks, or times with ours his pace.

Elfin, ouphe, and gnarly gnome,
Ye who house the humble-bee,
Ride the slow snail to its home,
Wrap the worm up silkenly;
Ye who guard the wild bees' comb,
And the dome
Of the hornets in the tree,
Hear the call—
One and all
Gather! gather, Autumn's come!