THE RUIN
When the last colours of the day
Have from their burning ebbed away,
About that ruin, cold and lone,
The cricket shrills from stone to stone;
And scattering o'er its darkened green,
Bands of the fairies may be seen,
Chattering like grasshoppers, their feet
Dancing a thistledown dance round it:
While the great gold of the mild moon
Tinges their tiny acorn shoon.
THE RIDE-BY-NIGHTS
Up on their brooms the Witches stream,
Crooked and black in the crescent's gleam;
One foot high, and one foot low,
Bearded, cloaked, and cowled, they go,
'Neath Charlie's Wain they twitter and tweet,
And away they swarm 'neath the Dragon's feet,
With a whoop and a flutter they swing and sway,
And surge pell-mell down the Milky Way.
Betwixt the legs of the glittering Chair
They hover and squeak in the empty air.
Then round they swoop past the glimmering Lion
To where Sirius barks behind huge Orion;
Up, then, and over to wheel amain,
Under the silver, and home again.
PEAK AND PUKE
From his cradle in the glamourie
They have stolen my wee brother,
Housed a changeling in his swaddlings
For to fret my own poor mother.
Pules it in the candle light
Wi' a cheek so lean and white,
Chinkling up its eyne so wee
Wailing shrill at her an' me.
It we'll neither rock nor tend
Till the Silent Silent send,
Lapping in their awesome arms
Him they stole with spells and charms,
Till they take this changeling creature
Back to its own fairy nature --
Cry! Cry! As long as may be,
Ye shall ne'er be woman's baby!
THE CHANGELING
"Ahoy, and ahoy!'
'Twixt mocking and merry --
'Ahoy and ahoy, there,
Young man of the ferry!'
She stood on the steps
In the watery gloom ---
That Changeling --'Ahoy, there!'
She called him to come.
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