  In former days, in my life’s young morning, I wore a garland my brow adorning; How wondrously glisten’d then every flower! The garland was fill’d with a magical power. While all in the beautiful garland took pleasure, Its wearer they hated beyond all measure; I fled from the envy of mortals rude, I fled to the wood’s green solitude. To the wood! to the wood! A life of enjoyment With spirits and beasts was my sole employment. The fairies and stags, with their antlers tall, Without any fear approach’d me all. They all approach’d me without any terror, In this they knew they committed no error; That I was no huntsman, the doe well knew, That I was no babbler, the fairies saw too. None but fools ever boast of the fays’ approbation, But how the remaining gentry of station That lived in the forest treated me well, I’ve not the slightest objection to tell. How round me hover’d the elfin rabble, That airy race, with their charming gabble! ’Tis dangerous truly their gaze to meet, The bliss it imparts is so deadly, though sweet. With May dance and May games amused they me highly And tales of the court narrated they slily, For instance, the scandalous chronicles e’en Of lovely Titania, the faery queen. If I sat by the brook, with leaping and springing Rose out of the flood, their tresses wringing, With long silver veils and fluttering hair, The water-bacchantes, the nixes fair! They play’d on the lute and the fiddle so sweetly, And danced the nixes’ famed dances discreetly; The tunes that they sang, the antics they play’d, Of rollicking boisterous madness seem’d made. And yet at times was much less alarming The noise that they made; these elfins charming Before my feet lay quietly, Their heads reclining on my knee. Some foreign romances they trill’d,—for example I’ll name the “three oranges” song as a sample; A hymn of praise they sang also with grace On me and my noble human face. They oft interrupted their songs with loud laughter, Many critical matters inquiring after, For instance: “On what particular plan “Did God determine on fashioning man? “Is each individual’s soul altogether “Immortal? These souls, are they made all of leather, “Or stiff linen only? How comes it to pass “That almost every man is an ass?” The answers I gave, I’ll conceal for the present, And yet my immortal soul (which is pleasant) Was not in the slightest degree ever hurt By the prattling talk of a water-sprite pert. While sportive and roguish are elfins and nixes, Not so the truehearted earth-spirits and pixies, Which love to help man. I prefer most of all The race that they dwarfs or mannikins call. They all wear a long and swelling red doublet, Their face is noble, though care seems to trouble it; I let them not see that I had descried Why they their feet so carefully hide. They all have ducks’ feet, but object much to show it; And fancy that nobody else can know it; Their sorrow’s so deep and hard to bear, That to teaze them about it I never could dare. Alas! we all, like those dwarfs full of feeling, We all have something that needs concealing; No Christians, we fancy, have ever descried Where we our ducks’ feet so carefully hide. Salamanders for me had never attractions, I learnt very little respecting their actions From other wood spirits. They pass’d me by night Like fleeting shadows, mysteriously light. They are thin as a spindle, and long as a baby, With breeches and waistcoats tight-fitting as may be, Of scarlet colours, embroider’d with gold; Their faces are sickly and yellow and old. A golden crown, with rubies all over, The head of each of their number doth cover; The whole of these vain conceited elves Quite absolute monarchs consider themselves. That they are not burnt in the fire is truly A great piece of art, I acknowledge it duly; And yet the uninflammable wight Is far from being a true fire-sprite. The sharpest woodspirits are mandrakes however; Short legs have these bearded mannikins clever; They have old men’s faces, the length of a span, But whence they proceed, is a secret to man. When head over heels in the moonlight they tumble, They remind one of roots in their nature quite humble; But as my welfare they always have sought, Their origin really to me matters nought. In small acts of witchcraft they gave me instructions, How to exorcise flames, ply the birds with seductions, And also to pluck on Midsummer night The root that makes one invisible quite. They taught me the stars and strange signs—how astraddle To ride on the winds without any saddle, And Runic sentences, able to call The dead from out of their silent graves all. They also taught me the whistle mysterious That serves to deceive the woodpecker serious, And makes him give us the spurge, to show Wher |
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