And, nestling on her snowy breast,
Forgot the lily-king's behest.
For this the shadowy tribes of air

To the elfin court must haste away:And now they stand expectant there,

To hear the doom of the Culprit Fay.

VI

The throne was reared upon the grass 8
Of spice-wood and of sassafras;
On pillars of mottled tortoise-shell

Hung the burnished canopy-
And o'er it gorgeous curtains fell

Of the tulip's crimson drapery. The monarch sat on his judgment-seat, On his brow the crown imperial shone, The prisoner Fay was at his feet,

And his peers were ranged around the throne.

He waved his sceptre in the air,

He looked around and calmly spoke; His brow was grave and his eye severe, But his voice in a softened accent broke:

VII

"Fairy! Fairy! list and mark,

90

Thou hast broke thine elfin chain, Thy flame-wood lamp is quenched and dark,

And thy wings are dyed with a deadly stain

Thou hast sullied thine elfin purity

In the glance of a mortal maiden's eye Thou has scorned our dread decree, 100 And thou shouldst pay the forfeit high, But well I know her sinless mind Is pure as the angel forms above, Gentle and meek, and chaste and kind, Such as a spirit well might love; Fairy! had she spot or taint, Bitter had been thy punishment. Tied to the hornet's shardy wings; Tossed on the pricks of nettles' stings; Or seven long ages doomed to dwell With the lazy worm in the walnut-shell; Or every night to writhe and bleed Beneath the tread of the centipede; Or bound in a cobweb dungeon dim, Your jailer a spider huge and grim, Amid the carrion bodies to lie,

110

Of the worm, and the bug, and the murdered fly:

These it had been your lot to bear,

Had a stain been found on the earthly fair.

Now list, and mark our mild decree- 120 Fairy, this your doom must be:

He turned him round and fled amain
With hurry and dash to the beach again;
He twisted over from side to side,
And laid his cheek to the cleaving tide. 240
The strokes of his plunging arms are
fleet,

And with all his might he flings his feet,
But the water-sprites are round him still,
To cross his path and work him ill.
They bade the wave before him rise;
They flung the sea-fire in his eyes,
And they stunned his ears with the scal-
lop stroke,

With the porpoise heave and the drumfish croak.

Oh! but a weary wight was he
When he reached the foot of the dog-

With sweeping tail and quivering fin, Through the wave the sturgeon flew, And, like the heaven-shot javelin,

He sprung above the waters blue. Instant as the star-fall light,

He plunged him in the deep again, But left an arch of silver bright The rainbow of the moony main. It was a strange and lovely sight

To see the puny goblin there; He seemed an angel form of light, With azure wing and sunny hair, Throned on a cloud of purple fair, Circled with blue and edged with white, And sitting at the fall of even Beneath the bow of summer heaven.

XXII

A moment and its lustre fell,

But ere it met the billow blue, He caught within his crimson bell, A droplet of its sparkling dew—

330

340

Joy to thee, Fay! thy task is done,
Thy wings are pure, for the gem is won—
Cheerily ply thy dripping oar,
And haste away to the elfin shore.

XXIII

He turns, and lo! on either side
The ripples on his path divide;

And the track o'er which his boat must

pass

349

Is smooth as a sheet of polished glass. Around, their limbs the sea-nymphs lave, With snowy arms half swelling out, While on the glossed and gleamy wave Their sea-green ringlets loosely float; They swim around with smile and song; They press the bark with pearly hand, And gently urge her course along,

Toward the beach of speckled sand; And, as he lightly leapt to land, They bade adieu with nod and bow, Then gayly kissed each little hand, And dropped in the crystal deep below.

XXIV

360

A moment staied the fairy there;
He kissed the beach, and breathed a
prayer,

Then he spread his wings of gilded blue,
And on to the elfin court he flew;
As ever ye saw a bubble rise,

And shine with a thousand changing dyes,
Till lessening far through ether driven,
It mingles with the hues of heaven:
As, at the glimpse of morning pale, 370
The lance-fly spreads his silken sail,
And gleams with blendings soft and
bright,

Till lost in the shades of fading night;
So rose from earth the lovely Fay-
So vanished, far in heaven away!

Many a time on a summer's night, When the sky was clear and the moon was bright,

They had been roused from the haunted ground,

By the yelp and bay of the fairy hound;
They had heard the tiny bugle horn,
They had heard the twang of the maize-
silk string,

When the vine-twig bows were tightly drawn,

And the nettle shaft through air was borne,

Feathered with down of the hum-bird's

wing.

And now they deemed the courier ouphe, Some hunter sprite of the elfin ground; And they watched till they saw him mount the roof

That canopies the world around; Then glad they left their covert lair, And freaked about in the midnight air.

XXVII

Up to the vaulted firmament
His path the fire-fly courser bent,

421

XXX

Sudden along the snowy tide

470

That swelled to meet their footsteps' fall, The sylphs of heaven were seen to glide, Attired in sunset's crimson pall; Around the Fay they weave the dance, They skip before him on the plain, And one has taken his wasp-sting lance, And one upholds his bridle-rein; With warbling wild they lead him on To where through clouds of amber seen, Studded with stars, resplendent shone The palace of the sylphid queen. 481 Its spiral columns gleaming bright Were streamers of the northern light; Its curtain's light and lovely flush Was of the morning's rosy blush, And the ceiling fair that rose aboon The white and feathery fleece of noon.