The box-trees were clipped, and the alleys were

straight,

Till you came to the shrubbery hard by the

gate.

The fairies stepped out of the lavender

beds,

With mob-caps, or wigs, on their quaint little heads;

My lord had a sword and my lady a fan;

The music struck up and the dancing be

gan.

I watched them go through with a grave minuet;

Wherever they footed the dew was not wet; They bowed and they curtsied, the brave and the fair;

And laughter like chirping of crickets was there.

Then all on a sudden a church clock struck

loud:

A flutter, a shiver, was seen in the crowd,

The cock crew, the wind woke, the trees tossed

their heads,

And the fairy folk hid in the lavender beds.

W. B. RANDS.

Farewell to the Fairies

Farewell rewards and fairies,

Good housewives now may say,

For now foul sluts in dairies

Do fare as well as they.

And though they sweep their hearths no less
Than maids were wont to do,

Yet who of late, for cleanliness,
Finds sixpence in her shoe?

At morning and at evening both,
You merry were and glad,
So little care of sleep or sloth

Those pretty ladies had.

When Tom came home from labour,

Or Çis to milking rose,

Then merrily went their tabor,

And nimbly went their toes.

Witness those rings and roundelays
Of theirs, which yet remain,
Were footed in Queen Mary's days
On many a grassy plain;
But since of late Elizabeth,
And later, James came in,
They never danced on any heath
As when the time hath been.

By which we note the fairies
Were of the old profession,
Their songs were Ave-Maries,
Their dances were procession:
now, alas! they all are dead,
Or gone beyond the seas;
Or farther for religion fled,

But

Or else they take their ease.

A tell-tale in their company
They never could endure,
And whoso kept not secretly

Their mirth, was punished sure; It was a just and Christian deed

To pinch such black and blue:
O how the commonwealth doth need
Such justices as you!

RICHARD CORBET (1582-1635).

Dirge on the Death of Oberon, the Fairy King

Toll the lilies' silver bells!
Oberon, the King, is dead!

In her grief the crimson rose
All her velvet leaves has shed.

Toll the lilies' silver bells!
Oberon is dead and gone!

He who looked an emperor

When his glow-worm crown was on.

Toll the lilies' silver bells!

Slay the dragonfly, his steed;

Dig his grave within the ring

Of the mushrooms in the mead.

G. W. THORNBURY.

(But he wasn't dead really. It was all a mistake.

So they didn't slay the dragonfly after all.)

Kilmeny

(A Story about one who went there)

Bonny Kilmeny gaed1 up the glen;
But it wasna to meet Duneira's men,
Nor the rosy monk of the isle to see,
For Kilmeny was pure as pure could be.
It was only to hear the yorlin2 sing,

And pull the blue-cress-flower round the spring;

3

To pull the hip and the hindberrye, 3
And the nut that hung frae the hazel-tree;
For Kilmeny was pure as pure could be.
But lang may her minnie1 look o'er the wa',
And lang may she seek in the greenwood shaw;
Lang the Laird o' Duneira blame,

And lang, lang greets e'er Kilmeny come hame!

When many a day had come and fled,
When grief grew calm, and hope was dead,
When mass for Kilmeny's soul had been sung,
When the bedesman had prayed and the dead-
bell rung;

2

gaed: went. yorlin: yellow-hammer. 3 hindberrye: wild raspberry. minnie: mother. 5 greet: weep.