PART III
THE HIDEOUS HERMIT
Ah, what wonders round us rose
When we dared to pause and look,
Curious things that seemed all toes,
Goblins from a picture-book;
Ants like witches, four feet high,
Waving all their skinny arms,
Glared at us and wandered by,
Muttering their ancestral charms.
Stately forms in green and gold
Armour strutted through the glades,
Just as Hamlet's ghost, we're told,
Mooned among the midnight shades:
Once a sort of devil came
Scattering broken trees about, Winged with leather, eyed with flame,—
He was but a moth, no doubt.
Here and there, above us clomb
Feathery clumps of palm on high:
Those were ferns, of course, but some
Really seemed to touch the sky;
Yes; and down one fragrant glade,
Listening as we onward stole,
Half delighted, half afraid,
Dong, we heard the hare-bells toll!
Something told us what that gleam
Down the glen was brooding o'er;
Something told us in a dream
What the bells were tolling for!
Something told us there was fear,
Horror, peril, on our way!
Was it far or was it near?
Near, we heard the night-wind say.
Toll, the music reeled and pealed
Through the vast and sombre trees,
Where a rosy light revealed
Dimmer, sweeter mysteries;
And, like petals of the rose,
Fairy fans in beauty beat,
Light in light—ah, what were those
Rhymes we heard the night repeat?
Toll, a dream within a dream,
Up an aisle of rose and blue,
Up the music's perfumed stream
Came the words, and then we knew,
Knew that in that distant glen
Once again the case was tried, Hark!—Who killed Cock Robin, then?
And a tiny voice replied,
"I
killed
Cock
Robin!"
"I! And who are You, sir, pray?"
Growled a voice that froze our marrow:
"Who!" we heard the murderer say,
"Lord, sir, I'm the famous Sparrow,
And this 'ere's my bow and arrow!
I
killed
Cock
Robin!"
Then, with one great indrawn breath,
Such a sighin' and a sobbin'
Rose all round us for the death
Of poor, poor Cock Robin,
Oh, we couldn't bear to wait
Even to hear the murderer's fate,
Which we'd often wished to know
Sitting in the fireside glow
And with hot revengeful looks
Searched for in the nursery-books;
For the Robin and the Wren
Are such friends to mortal men,
Such dear friends to mortal men!
Toll; and through the woods once more
Stole we, drenched with fragrant dew:
Toll; the hare-bell's burden bore
Deeper meanings than we knew:
Still it told us there was fear,
Horror, peril on our way!
Was it far or was it near?
Near, we heard the night-wind say!
Near; and once or twice we saw
Something like a monstrous eye,
Something like a hideous claw
Steal between us and the sky:
Still we hummed a dauntless tune
Trying to think such things might be
Glimpses of the fairy moon
Hiding in some hairy tree.
Yet around us as we went
Through the glades of rose and blue
Sweetness with the horror blent
Wonder-wild in scent and hue:
Here Aladdin's cavern yawned,
Jewelled thick with gorgeous dyes;
There a head of clover dawned
Like a cloud In eastern skies.
Hills of topaz, lakes of dew,
Fairy cliffs of crystal sheen
Passed we; and the forest's blue
Sea of branches tossed between:
Once we saw a gryphon make
One soft iris as it passed
Like the curving meteor's wake
O'er the forest, far and fast.
Winged with purple, breathing flame,
Crimson-eyed we saw him go,
Where—ah! could it be the same
Cockchafer we used to know?—
Valley-lilies overhead,
High aloof in clustered spray,
Far through heaven their splendour spread,
Glimmering like the Milky Way.
Mammoths father calls "extinct,"
Creatures that the cave-men feared,
Through that forest walked and blinked,
Through that jungle crawled and leered; Beasts no Nimrod ever knew,
Woolly bears black and red;
Crocodiles, we wondered who
Ever dared to see them fed,
Were they lizards? If they were,
They could swallow us with ease;
But they slumbered quietly there
In among the mighty trees;
Red and silver, blue and green,
Played the moonlight on their scales;
Golden eyes they had, and lean
Crookèd legs with cruel nails.
Yet again, oh, faint and far,
Came the shadow of a cry,
Like the calling of a star
To its brother in the sky;
Like an echo in a cave
Where young mermen sound their shells,
Like the wind across a grave
Bright with scent of lily-bells.
Like a fairy hunter's horn
Sounding in some purple glen
Sweet revelly to the morn
And the fairy quest again:
Then, all round it surged a song
We could never understand
Though it lingered with us long,
And it seemed so sad and grand.