University of Virginia Library

“Ho, ho!” quoth the Fairies—“here's a cup
Of dew that the Sun has clean forgot,
In his midsummer madness, to drink up—
Let us quaff to his worshipful health!—why not?
To the Sun's bright health! and.. ahem!—may he
Show ever the same short memory!”

So they sipped and they quaffed, till the cup was dry—
That the nectar was strong you may well rely,
For the wood soon rang with their revelry,—
And quaint were the mirth and the melody
Of the songs they poured on the midnight breeze,
As they waltzed round hillocks and old oak trees.
But lo! in the midst of their maddest dance,—
Poor merrymen all!—a sudden trance
O'ertook them, a torpor, whose drowsy might
Weighed their eyelids down in their own despite—
Hushed grew their voices, and heavy and slow
Moved the little feet so brisk e'en now,
And, heedless of nighteaps and toilet graces,
In all sorts of postures, and all sorts of places,
They yielded, at last, each failing sense
To that torpor's tyrannical influence.
One fell asleep with his head in the cup
He had just been draining,—one curled up
His leaden limbs in a cranny, where
A spider, a sort of Giant Despair,
Tied him fast with a web through his golden hair;—
And one,—worst luck of all,—slipped over
A high bank into a furzy cover,
Terribly ragged and rough and lonely,
Where he tore, I fear,..not his jerkin only.
But neither thorns, nor spiders, nor aught
That is most abhorrent to elfin thought,
Had power at that moment, to loose the yoke
Of the spell that bound those fairy folk;—
So they slept and slept with a right good will,
And the morning found them sleeping still.

“Aha!” said the Sun, when, called to rise,
He got out of bed with winking eyes,
And, while his curtain of mist he furled,
Looked down from his window on the world;—
“Aha! They are caught in my trap, I see—
These moon-lovging sprites—henceforth they'll be
Somewhat less ready to touch, I'm thinking,
The dew that is meant for my private drinking.
'Twas a wise thought, that of mine, to pray
My gossip, the wind, that yesterday
Set out on a journey round that way,
To drop from his pinion as he flew,
In that acorn-cup brimfull of dew,
Two great white poppy seeds, ripe and rare
And of wondrous virtue to ensnare
Poachers and pilferers such as they—
Aha! there'll be dew enough to day!”

And there was dew—light laughed the sun,
As he drained the flower-cups, one by one,—
Meadow-sweet, foxglove and mountain bell,
Primrose and cowslip and pimpernel,
All of them beaded and brimming o'er;—
Dew there was, truly, an ample store,
And the next day too, and for many more.
But whether, from that time forth, made wise
By the cramps and stitches and maladies,
That seized them in waking, the cunning elves
Foreswore dew-drinking and bound themselves
With a ‘temperance pledge,’ in the usual way—
I can't inform you .. perhaps they may!