THE FAIRIES
BY WILLIAM ALLINGHAM
Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We daren’t go a-hunting
For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together:
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owl’s feather!
Down along the rocky shore
Some make their home,
They live on crispy pancakes
Of yellow tide-foam;
Some in the reeds
Of the black mountain-lake,
With frogs for their watch-dogs,
All night awake.
High on the hill-top
The old King sits;
He is now so old and gray
He’s nigh lost his wits.
With a bridge of white mist
Columbkill he crosses,
On his stately journeys
From Slieveleague to Rosses;
Or going up with music
On cold starry nights,
To sup with the Queen
Of the gay Northern Lights.
They stole little Bridget
For seven years long;
When she came down again
Her friends were all gone.
They took her lightly back,
Between the night and morrow,
They thought that she was fast asleep,
But she was dead with sorrow.
They have kept her ever since
Deep within the lake,
On a bed of flag-leaves,
Watching till she wake.
By the craggy hill-side,
Through the mosses bare,
They have planted thorn-trees
For pleasure here and there.
Is any man so daring
As dig them up in spite,
He shall find their sharpest thorns
In his bed at night.
Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We daren’t go a-hunting
For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owl’s feather!
OH, WHERE DO FAIRIES HIDE THEIR HEADS?
BY THOMAS HAYNES BAYLY
Oh, where do fairies hide their heads
When snow lies on the hills,
When frost has spoiled their mossy beds,
And crystallized their rills?
Beneath the moon they cannot trip
In circles o’er the plain,
And draughts of dew they cannot sip
Till green leaves come again.
Perhaps, in small blue diving-bells
They plunge beneath the waves—
Inhabiting the wreathèd shells
That lie in coral caves.
Perhaps in red Vesuvius
Carousal they maintain;
And cheer their little spirits thus
Till green leaves come again.
Or, maybe, in soft garments rolled,
In hollow trees they lie,
And sing, when nestled from the cold,
To while the season by.
There, while they sleep in pleasant trance,
’Neath mossy counterpane,
In dreams they weave some fairy dance,
Till green leaves come again.
When they return there will be mirth
And music in the air,
And fairy rings upon the earth,
And mischief everywhere.
The maids, to keep the elves aloof,
Will bar the doors in vain;
No key-hole will be fairy-proof,
When green leaves come again.
