Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small]

"Sisters! I have seen this night

A hundred cottage fires burn bright,
And a thousand happy faces shining

In the burning blaze, and the gleam declining.

I care, not I, for the stars above,

The lights on earth are the lights I love;

Let Venus blur the evening air,

Uprise at morn Prince Lucifer;
But those little tiny stars be mine

That through the softened copse-wood shine,
With beauty crown the pastoral hill,
And glimmer o'er the sylvan rill,
Where stands the peasant's ivied nest,
And the huge mill-wheel is at rest.
From out the honeysuckle's blcom
I peep'd into that laughing room,
Then, like a hail-drop on the pane,
Pattering, I still'd the din again,
While every startled eye looked up,
And, half-raised to her lips the cup,

The rosy maiden's look met mine!

But I vail'd mine eyes with the silken twine
Of the small wild roses, clustering thickly;
Then to her seat returning quickly,

She 'gan to talk with bashful glee

Of fairies 'neath the greenwood tree
Dancing by moonlight, and she blest
Gently our silent land of rest.

The infants playing on the floor,

At these wild words their sports gave o'er,
And ask'd where liv'd the Cottage Fairy;
The maid replied, She loves to tarry
Ofttimes beside our very hearth,

And joins in little children's mirth,

When they are gladly innocent;
And sometimes beneath the leafy tent,
That murmurs round our cottage door,
Our overshadowing sycamore,

We see her dancing in a ring,

And hear the blessed creature sing

A creature full of gentleness,

Rejoicing in our happiness.'

Then pluck'd I a wreath with many a gem
Eurning a flowery diadem-

And through the wicket, with a glide

I slipped, and sat me down beside

The youngest of those infants fair,

And wreath'd the blossoms in her hair.

Who placed these flowers on William's head?'

The little wondering sister said,

[ocr errors]

A wreath not half so bright and gay,

Crown'd me, upon the morn of May,
Queen of that sunny holiday.'
The tiny monarch laughed aloud
With pride among the loving crowd,
And, with my shrillest voice, I lent
A chorus to their merriment;
Then with such murmur as a bee
Makes, from a flower-cup suddenly
Borne off into the silent sky,

I skimmed away, and with delight
Sailed down the calm stream of the night,
Till gently as a flake of snow,

Once more I dropp'd on earth below

JOHN WILSON.

FAIRIES IN THE HIGHLANDS.

FROM THE "CULPRIT FAY."

The moon looks down on old Cro'nest,

She mellows the shades on his shaggy breast,
And seems his huge gray form to throw

In a silver cone on the wave below;

His sides are broken by spots of shade,

By the walnut bough and the cedar made,
And through their clustering branches dark,
Glimmers and dies the firefly's spark-

Like starry twinkles that momently break
Through the rifts of the gathering tempest's rack.

The stars are on the moving stream,
And fling, as its ripples gently flow,
A burnish'd length of wavy beam,
In an eel-like, spiral line below;
The winds are whist, and the owl is still,
The bat in the shelvy rock is hid,
And naught is heard on the lonely hill
But the cricket's chirp, and the answer shrill
Of the gauze-winged katydid;

And the plaint of the wailing whippowil,
Who moans unseen and ceaseless sings,
Ever a note of wail and woe,

Till morning spreads her rosy wings,
And earth and sky in her glances glow.

'Tis the hour of fairy ban and spell :

The wood-tick has kept the minutes well,
She has counted them all with click and stroke,
Deep in the heart of the mountain-oak,

And he has awaken'd the sentry elve,

Who sleeps with him in the haunted tree,

To bid him ring the hour of twelve,

And call the fays to their revelry.

Twelve small strokes on his tinkling bell

('Twas made of the white snail's pearly shell)"Midnight comes, and all is well!

Hither, hither, wing your way!

'Tis the dawn of the fairy day."

They come from beds of lichen green,

They creep from the mullein's velvet screen;

Some on the backs of beetles fly,

From the silver tops of moon-touched trees,

Where they swung in their cobweb-hammocks high,

And rock'd about in the evening breeze;

Some from the hum-bird's downy nest

They had driven him out by elfin power,

And, pillow'd on plumes of his rainbow breast,

Had slumber'd there till the charmed hour;

Some had lain in the scoop of the rock,

With glittering ising-stars inlaid;

And some had open'd the four-o'clock,

And stole within its purple shade,

And now they throng the moonlight glade. Above-below-on every side,

Their little minim forms array'd In the tricksy pomp of fairy pride!

[subsumed][merged small][graphic]

XVII.

Medley.

OF BEAUTY.

THE

HERE is beauty in the rolling clouds, and placid shingle beach, In feathery snows and whistling winds, and dim electric skies; There is beauty in the rounded woods dank with heavy foliage,

In laughing fields and dented hills, the valley and its lake;

There is beauty in the gullies, beauty on the cliffs, beauty in sun and shade,

In rocks and rivers, seas and plains the earth is drowned in beauty!

Beauty coileth with the water-snake, and is cradled in the shrew-mouse's

nest;

She flitteth out with evening bats, and the soft mole hid her in his tunnel;

The limpet is encamped upon the shore, and beauty not a stranger to

his tent;

The silvery dace and golden carp thread the rushes with her.

She saileth into clouds with an eagle, she fluttereth into tulips with a humming-bird;

The pasturing kine are of her company, and she prowleth with the

leopard in his jungle.

MARTIN F. TUPPER

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »