Sylvia :: :: University of Virginia Library

A view like one of Fairy-land,
As gay, as gorgeous, and as grand;
Millions of bright star-lustres hung
The glittering leaves and boughs among;
High-battled, domy palaces,
Seen crystal through the glimmering trees,
With spires and glancing minarets,
Just darting from their icy seats:
Pavilions, diamond-storied towers,
Dull'd by the aromatic bowers;
Transparent peaks and pinnacles,
Like streams shot upward from their wells,
Or cave-dropt, Parian icicles.

Green haunts, and deep enquiring lanes,
Wind through the trunks their grassy trains;
Millions of chaplets curl unweft
From boughs, beseeching to be reft,

To prune the clustering of their groves,
And wreathe the brows that Beauty loves.
Millions of blossoms, fruits, and gems,
Bend with rich weight the massy stems;
Millions of restless dizzy things,
With ruby tufts, and rainbow wings,
Speckle the eye-refreshing shades,
Burn through the air, or swim the glades:
As if the tremulous leaves were tongues,
Millions of voices, sounds, and songs,
Breathe from the aching trees that sigh,
Near sick of their own melody.

Raised by a magic breath whene'er
The pow'rs of Fairyland are here,
And by a word as potent blown
To sightless air, when they are gone,
This scene of beauty now displays
Both flank and front in sheets of blaze:
Spirits in an ascending quire
Touch with soft palm the golden wire:
While some on wing, some on the ground,
In mazy circles whirl around;
Kissing and smiling, as they pass,
Like sweet winds o'er the summer grass:
Nephon and Osme chief are seen,
In heavenly blue, and earthly green,
The one and other: both unite
With trim Floretta veil'd in white;

And mincing measures, small and neat,
Mimic the music with their feet.
After their dance is done, the chorus
Hints something new descends before us.

CHORUS OF SPIRITS.

Gently!—gently!—down!—down!
From the starry courts on high,
Gently step adown, down
The ladder of the sky.

Sunbeam steps are strong enough
For such airy feet!—
Spirits, blow your trumpets rough,
So as they be sweet!

Breathe them loud the Queen descending,
Yet a lowly welcome breathe,
Like so many flowerets bending
Zephyr's breezy foot beneath!

Morgana descends amid sweet and solemn music.
Morgana.
No more, my Spirits!—I have come from whence
Peace, with white sceptre wafting to and fro,
Smoothes the wide bosom of the Elysian world.
Would't were as calm on Earth! But there are some

Who mar the sweet intent. Ev'n in these bounds,
Ararach, wizard vile! who sold himself
To Eblis, for a brief sway o'er the fiends,
Would set up his dark canopy, and make
Our half o' the vale, by force or fraud, his own.
We must take care he do not.—Where's that ouphe?
That feather-footed, light-heel'd, little Mercury?
That fairy-messenger? whom we saw now
Horsed on a dragon-fly wing round the fields?
Come out, sir!—Where is Nephon?

Nephon.

Here am I! here am I!

Softer than a lover's sigh,
Swifter than the moonbeam, I
Dance before thee duteously.

Morgana.
Light gentleman, say whither hast thou been?

Nephon.
Over the dales, and mossy meadows green.

Morgana.
Doing the deed I told thee?

Nephon.
Else would I fear thou 'st scold me!

Morgana.
Led'st thou the Rover downward to the glen?

Nephon.
Down, down to the glen,
Through forest and fen;
O'er rock, and o'er rill,
I flatter'd him still;

With chirp, and with song,
To lure him along;
Like a bird hopping onward from bramble to briar,
I led the young Wanderer nigher and nigher!

Morgana.
None of your idle songs!—speak to me plain.

Nephon.
I laid a knotted riband in his path,
Which he took up; kiss'd—'t was so fine!—and put it
Into his breast: Ting! ting! said I, from out
A bush half down the dale: he gazed. Ting! ting!
Said I again. On came he, wondering wide,
And stumbling oft, ha! ha!—but ne'er the less,
He followed sweet ting! ting! down the hill-side,
E'en to the bottom: where I mock'd, and left him.

Morgana.
I'll bring thee a sweet cup of dew for this,
Cold from the moon.

Nephon.
Meantime I'll drain a flower
Fill'd with bright tears from young Aurora's eye.

Morgana.
Skip not away, sir!—List what thou must do.
False Ararach doth love the gentle maid
Who shepherds in this vale: nay, he would have her
Sit on his iron throne, and rule with him.
She has oft wept, and call'd Heaven pitiless,
So that I've laugh'd to see her needless pain.

She is my favourite, and I will protect her:
I've search'd the wilderness of Earth all o'er
To find her a fit bridegroom: this is he
Whom thou hast guided hither.

Nephon.
A trim youth!

Morgana.
Be it thy business to search out the wiles,
Prevent the malice, curb the violence,
With which the spiteful monarch will assail him.
Ev'n now he scents some new-come virtue here,
And plots its quick destruction. Swift, away!
Thou 'lt see me nich'd within a hovering cloud,
Pointing thee what to do. When thou would'st know
How to direct thyself, look up to Heaven,
And light will fall upon thee. Swift, away!

Nephon.
Away! away! away!
Away will I skip it!
Away will I trip it!
Flowers, take care of your heads as I go!
Who has a bright bonnet
I'll surely step on it,
And leave a light print of my minikin toe!
Away! away! away!

[Vanishes.
Morgana.
I've seen a man made out of elder pith

More steady than that puppet!—Yet he's careful,
Even where he seems most toyish.—Virgin spirit!
Come hither, fair Floretta!

Floretta.
As the murmuring bird-bee comes,
Circling with his joyous hums
Red-lipt rose, or lily sweet,—
Thus play I about thy feet!

Morgana.
Thou art the Queen of Flowers, and lov'st to tend
Thy beauteous subjects. Thou dost spread thy wing
Between the driving rain-drop and the rose,
Shelt'ring it at thy cost. I've seen thee stand
Drowning amid the fields to save a daisy,
And with warm kisses keep its sweet life in.
The shrinking violet thou dost cheer; and raise
The cowslip's drooping head: and once did'st cherish
In thy fond breast a snowdrop, dead with cold,
Ev'n till thy cheek grew paler than its own.

Floretta.
Ay, but it never smiled again! Ah me!

Morgana.
Go now, since beauty is so much thy care,

Sweetness and innocence,—go now, I say,
And guard the human lily of this vale.
Follow thy mad-cap brother, and restrain
His ardour with thy gentleness.

Floretta.
Ere thou say Be gone! I'm gone:
'Tis more slowly said than done!

[Vanishes.
Morgana.
Osmé, thou fragrant spirit! where art thou?

Osme.
Rocking upon a restless marigold,
And in its saffron, leafy feathers roll'd;
But with a bound I'm with you here—behold!

Morgana.
Hast thou been sipping what the wild bee hides
Deep in his waxen cave,—thou smell'st so sweet?

Osme. No:
I would never rob the minstrel-thing
That lulls me oft to sleep with murmuring,
And as I slumber, fans me with his wing.

Morgana.
My gentle elve!—Come thou, come thou with me:
I've an apt business for thy strength. Sit here,
On my light car, and be the charioteer;
Guide thou my trembling birds of Paradise,
That prune themselves from this dull earth to rise,
And cry with painful joy to float amid the skies.—
Ascend ye other Spirits all with me!

CHORUS.

See the radiant quire ascending,
Leaving misty Earth below,
With their varied colours blending
Hues to shame the water-bow.

Softly, slowly, still ascending
Many an upward airy mile!
To the realms of glory wending,
Fare thee well, dim Earth, awhile!