The Milkmaid and her Fairy Lover.
Gaily the milkmaid came tripping along;
The echoes so loved her, they joined in her song;
The hare and the wild-roe that browsed in the glade,
The bird on the bough swinging high over-head—
They saw and they heard, but they feared not—they KNEW the milkmaid.
Abundant her tresses, bright golden their hue;
And soft as a dove’s was her eye in its blue;
Elastic her footstep, and lightsome and free
As a fawn’s when in gladness it skips o’er the lea—
Of the old and the young the delight, and the pride of Glentallon was she.
In secret she met with the Hunter in Green,
Beside the lone fountain of Coirre-na-Sheen;
A gallant more gay ne’er did maiden behold,
His manner so gentle, his bearing so bold;
By his side freely dangled, and well could he wind it, a bugle of gold!
Full fondly he kissed her—she thought it no sin,
Though she knew not his name, nor his kith, nor his kin;
They plighted their troth by the fount’s bubbling stream,
Where oft, it is said, when frail mortals but dream,
The fairies hold revel, and trippingly dance in the moon’s mellow beam.
On the Eve of St. Agnes the maiden confessed,
As was proper she should, all her sins to the priest;
When she left him, the blush in her check mantled high;
There was care in her step, and a tear in her eye.
Yet pure was the maiden and spotless, I ween, as a star in the blue of the sky.
Next day, by the fountain of Coirre-na-Sheen,
The milkmaid again met the Hunter in Green.
As he kissed her she quietly slipped under his vest
A relic she long had worn next to her breast—
’Twas a relic in sooth the most sacred—a Cross that the holy St. Colomb had blessed.
And lo! in the place of the Hunter in Green
(’Twas all by the fountain of Coirre-na-Sheen),
A brown, withered twig, so elf twisted and dry,
Was all—’twas amazing—the maid could espy!
While the Cross, with a bright burning light round its edges, beside it did lie.
And the maid grasped the Cross, which devoutly she kissed,
And hid it again in the snow of her breast;
Homewards she turned her with pensive steps slowly,
But her heart was at peace—meek, submissive, and lowly,
As maid and as mother (the Cross at her breast) she passed a life holy.
Often still wake the echoes of Coirre-na-Sheen,
At the blast of thy bugle, O Hunter in Green!
Go get thee a mate from the green fairy knowe—
A cross-bearing maid dare not wed such as thou:
Let fairy wed fey, and let mortal wed mortal. Come, Annabel, stir up the fire till it blaze in a lowe!
The moral of the fairy song is instantly apparent. A young lady—miss or milkmaid—is not to hold clandestine appointments with any young gentleman, however lovable and attractive, until at least she knows who and what he is, whence he cometh and whither he goeth. Having met and loved, however, she is instantly to consult those who are older and wiser than herself, and, under their friendly care and direction, she is to be sure that, on her own part and on that of her lover, all shall be pure and holy. The touch at the end is admirable. We must suppose a mother telling the story, herself and sons and daughters sitting round the fire, which, in the absorbing interest of the tale, has been for the time neglected. “Annabel,” addressed at the close, we must fancy to be the eldest daughter, just entering upon womanhood. The whole moral of the story, flung obliquely at her head in the command to stir the fire and make it blaze, is exquisite, and we can fancy the gentle “Annabel” quietly smiling to herself the while—she also having a secret—as she cheerily obeys the maternal mandate.