Juliana Horatia Ewing

FAIRY KING.


"The breeze is on the Blue-bells,
The wind is on the lea;
Stay out! stay out! my little lad,
And chase the wind with me.
If you will give yourself to me,
Within the fairy ring,
At deep midnight,
When stars are bright,
You'll hear the Blue-bells ring--
D!
DI! DIN!
DING!
On slender stems they swing.

"The rustling wind, the whistling wind,
We'll chase him to and fro,
We'll chase him up, we'll chase him down
To where the King-cups grow;
And where old Jack-o'-Lantern waits
To light us on our way,
And far behind,
Upon the wind,
The Blue-bells seem to play--
D!
DI! DIN!
DING!
Lest we should go astray.

"So gay that fairy music,
So jubilant those bells,
How days and wee...

Found in the garden--dead in his beauty.
Ah! that a linnet should die in the spring!
Bury him, comrades, in pitiful duty,
Muffle the dinner-bell, solemnly ring.

Bury him kindly--up in the corner;
Bird, beast, and gold-fish are sepulchred there;
Bid the black kitten march as chief mourner,
Waving her tail like a plume in the air.

Bury him nobly--next to the donkey;
Fetch the old banner, and wave it about:
Bury him deeply--think of the monkey,
Shallow his grave, and the dogs got him out.

Bury him softly--white wool around him,
Kiss his poor feathers,--the first kiss and last;
Tell his poor widow kind friends have found him:
Plant his poor grave with whatever grows fast.

Farewell, sweet singer! dead in thy beauty,
Silent through summe...

Sally is the laundress, and every Saturday
She sends our clean clothes up from the wash, and Nurse puts them away.
Sometimes Sally is very kind, but sometimes she's as cross as a Turk;
When she's good-humoured we like to go and watch her at work.
She has tubs and a copper in the wash-house, and a great big fire and plenty of soap;
And outside is the drying-ground with tall posts, and pegs bought from the gipsies, and long lines of rope.
The laundry is indoors with another big fire, and long tables, and a lot of irons, and a crimping-machine;
And horses (not live ones with tails, but clothes-horses) and the same starch that is used by the Queen.
Sally wears pattens in the wash-house, and turns up her sleeves, and splashes, and rubs,
And makes beautiful white lather which foams over the tops of t...

A SONG OF SECOND SIGHT.


Elleree! O Elleree!
Seeing what none else may see,
Dost thou see the man in grey?
Dost thou hear the night hounds bay?
Elleree! O Elleree!
Seventh son of seventh son,
All thy thread of life is spun,
Thy little race is nearly run,
And death awaits for thee!

Elleree! O Elleree!
Coronach shall wail for thee;
Get thee shrived and get thee blest,
Get thee ready for thy rest,
Elleree! O Elleree!
That thou owest quickly give,
What thou ownest thou must leave,
And those thou lovest best shall grieve,
But all in vain for thee!

"Bodach Glas!"[2] the chieftain said,
"All my debts but one are paid,
All I love have long been dead,
All my hopes on Heaven are stay'd,
Death to me can...

Over wastes of blasted heather,
Where the pine-trees stand together,
Evermore my footsteps wander,
Evermore the shadows yonder
Deepen into gloom.
Where there lies a silent lake,
No song-bird there its thirst may slake,
No sunshine now to whiteness wake
The water-lily's bloom.

Some sweet spring-time long departed,
I and she, the simple-hearted,
Bride and bridegroom, maid and lover,
Did that gloomy lake discover,
Did those lilies see.
There we wandered side by side.
There it was they said she died.
But ah! in this I know they lied!
She will return to me!

Never, never since that hour
Has the lake brought forth a flower.
Ever harshly do the sedges
Some sad secret from its edges
Whisper to the shore.
Some sad secret I ...

One of a hundred little rills--
Born in the hills,
Nourished with dews by the earth, and with tears by the sky,
Sang--"Who so mighty as I?
The farther I flow
The bigger I grow.
I, who was born but a little rill,
Now turn the big wheel of the mill,
Though the surly slave would rather stand still.
Old, and weed-hung, and grim,
I am not afraid of him;
For when I come running and dance on his toes,
With a creak and a groan the monster goes.
And turns faster and faster,
As he learns who is master,
Round and round,
Till the corn is ground,
And the miller smiles as he stands on the bank,
And knows he has me to thank.
Then when he swings the fine sacks of flour,
I feel my power;
But when the children enjoy their food,
I know I'm not only ...

A TALE OF TRANSFORMATIONS.


A little Brook, that babbled under grass,
Once saw a Poet pass--
A Poet with long hair and saddened eyes,
Who went his weary way with woeful sighs.
And on another time,
This Brook did hear that Poet read his rueful rhyme.
Now in the poem that he read,
This Poet said--
"Oh! little Brook that babblest under grass!
(Ah me! Alack! Ah, well-a-day! Alas!)
Say, are you what you seem?
Or is your life, like other lives, a dream?
What time your babbling mocks my mortal moods,
Fair Naïad of the stream!
And are you, in good sooth,
Could purblind poesy perceive the truth,
A water-sprite,
Who sometimes, for man's dangerous delight,
Puts on a human form and face,
To wear them with a superhuman grace?

CHILD.

Five blue eggs hatching,
With bright eyes watching,
Little brown mother, you sit on your nest.


BIRD.

Oh! pass me blindly,
Oh! spare me kindly,
Pity my terror, and leave me to rest.


CHORUS OF CHILDREN.

Hush! hush! hush!
'Tis a poor mother thrush.
When the blue eggs hatch, the brown birds will sing--
This is a promise made in the Spring.


CHILD.

Five speckled thrushes
In leafy bushes
Singing sweet songs to the hot Summer sky.
In and out twitting,
Here and there flitting,
Happy is life as the long days go by.


CHORUS.

Hush! hush! hush!
'Tis the song of the thrush:
Hatched are the blue eggs; the brown birds do sing--
Keeping the promise made i...

It was on such a night as this,
Some long unreal years ago,
When all within were wrapp'd in sleep,
And all without was wrapp'd in snow,
The full moon rising in the east,
The old church standing like a ghost,
That, shivering in the wintry mist,
And breathless with the silent frost,
A little lad, I ran to seek my fortune on the main;
I marvel now with how much hope and with how little pain!

It is of such a night as this,
In all the lands where I have been,
That memory too faithfully
Has painted the familiar scene.
By all the shores, on every sea,
In luck or loss, by night or day,
My highest hope has been to see
That home from which I ran away.
For this I toil'd, to this I look'd through many a weary year,
I marvel now with how much hope, and...

There once was a Willow, and he was very old,
And all his leaves fell off from him, and left him in the cold;
But ere the rude winter could buffet him with snow,
There grew upon his hoary head a crop of Mistletoe.

All wrinkled and furrowed was this old Willow's skin,
His taper fingers trembled, and his arms were very thin;
Two round eyes and hollow, that stared but did not see,
And sprawling feet that never walked, had this most ancient tree.

A Dame who dwelt near was the only one who knew
That every year upon his head the Christmas berries grew;
And when the Dame cut them, she said--it was her whim--
"A merry Christmas to you, Sir!" _and left a bit for him_.

"Oh, Granny dear, tell us," the children cried, "where we
May find the shining Mistletoe that grows...

A TALE WITH A STING IN IT.

Ah!
There you are!
I was certain I heard a strange voice from afar.
Mamma calls me a pup, but I'm wiser than she;
One ear cocked and I hear, half an eye and I see;
Wide-awake though I doze, not a thing escapes me.

Yes!
Let me guess:
It's the stable-boy's hiss as he wisps down Black Bess.
It sounds like a kettle beginning to sing,
Or a bee on a pane, or a moth on the wing,
Or my master's peg-top, just let loose from the string.

Well!
Now I smell,
I don't know who you are, and I'm puzzled to tell.
You look like a fly dressed in very gay clothes,
But I blush to have troubled my mid-day repose
For a creature not worth half a twitch of my nose.

How now?
Bow, wow, wow!
The insect imagines we...

We meant to be very kind,
But if ever we find
Another soft, grey-green, moss-coated, feather-lined nest in a hedge,
We have taken a pledge--
Susan, Jemmy, and I--with remorseful tears, at this very minute,
That if there are eggs or little birds in it--
Robin or wren, thrush, chaffinch or linnet--
We'll leave them there
To their mother's care.
There were three of us--Kate, and Susan, and Jem--
And three of them--
I don't know their names, for they couldn't speak,
Except with a little imperative squeak,
Exactly like Poll,
Susan's squeaking doll;
But squeaking dolls will lie on the shelves
For years and never squeak of themselves:
The reason we like little birds so much better than toys
Is because they are really alive, and know how to mak...

A TALE OF THE HEDGE.

HEDGE-PLANTS.

"Beware!
We advise you to take care.
He lodges with us, so we know him well,
And can tell
You all about him,
And we strongly advise you not to flout him."


DANDELION.

"At my time of life," said the Dandelion,
"I keep an eye on
The slightest sign of disturbance and riot,
For my one object is to keep quiet
The reason I take such very great care,"
The old Dandy went on, "is because of my hair.
It was very thick once, and as yellow as gold;
But now I am old,
It is snowy-white,
And comes off with the slightest fright.
As to using a brush--
My good dog! I beseech you, don't rush,
Go quietly by me, if you please
You're as bad as a breeze.
I hope you'll attend to what we...

Come down! come down! O Holy Ghost!
As once of old Thou didst come down
In fiery tongues at Pentecost,
The Apostolic heads to crown.

Come down! though now no flame divine,
Nor heaven-sent Dove, our sight amaze;
Our Church still shows the outward sign,
Thou truly givest inward grace.

Come down! come down! on infancy,
The babes whom Jesus deign'd to love;
God give us grace by faith to see,
Above the Font, the mystic Dove.

Come down! come down! on kneeling bands
Of those who fain would strength receive;
And in the laying on of hands
Bless us beyond what we believe.

Come down! not only on the saint,
Oh! struggle with the hard of heart,
With wilful sin and inborn taint,
Till lust, and wrath, and pride depart.

Come d...

I'm weary waiting here,
The chill east wind is sighing,
The autumn tints are sere,
The summer flowers are dying.
The river's sullen way
Winds on through vacant meadows,
The dying light of day
Strives vainly with the shadows.

A footstep stirs the leaves!
The faded fields seem brighter,
The sunset gilds the sheaves,
The low'ring clouds look lighter.
The river sparkles by,
Not all the flowers are falling,
There's azure in the sky,
And thou, my love, art calling.