Singing, singing,
When the merry thrush is swinging
On a springing spray;
Or when the witch that lives in gloomy caves
And creeps by night among the graves
Calls a cloud across the day;
Cease we never our fairy song,
March we ever, along, along,
Down the dale, or up the hill,
Singing, singing still.
And suddenly the Hermit turned and ran with all his might
Through the back-door of his parlour as we thought of little Peterkin;
And the great grey roof was shattered by a shower of rosy light,
And the spider-house went floating, torn and tattered through the night
In a flight of prismy streamers, as a shout went up for Peterkin;
And lo, the glistening fairy-host stood there arrayed for fight,
In arms of rose and green and gold, to lead us on to Peterkin.
And all around us, rippling like a pearl and opal sea,
The host of fairy faces winked a kindly hint of Peterkin;
And all around the rosy glade a laugh of fairy glee
Watched spider-streamers floating up from fragrant tree to tree
Till the moonlight caught the gossamers and, oh we wished for Peterkin! Each rope became a rainbow; but it made us ache to see
Such a fairy forest-pomp without explaining it to Peterkin.
Then all the glittering crowd
With a courtly gesture bowed
Like a rosy jewelled cloud
Round a flame,
As the King of Fairy-land,
Very dignified and grand,
Stepped forward to demand
Whence we came.
He'd a cloak of gold and green
Such as caterpillars spin,
For the fairy ways, I ween,
Are very frugal;
He'd a bow that he had borne
Since the crimson Eden morn,
And a honeysuckle horn
For his bugle.
So we told our tale of faëry to the King of Fairy-land,
And asked if he could let us know the latest news of Peterkin;
And he turned him with a courtly smile and waved his jewelled wand
And cried, Pease-blossom, Mustard-seed! You know the old command;
Well; these are little children; you must lead them on to Peterkin.
Then he knelt, the King of Faëry knelt; his eyes were great and grand
As he took our hands and kissed them, saying, Father loves your Peterkin!
So out they sprang, on either side,
A light fantastic fairy guide,
To lead us to the land unknown
Where little Peterkin was gone; And, as we went with timid pace,
We saw that every fairy face
In all that moonlit host was wet
With tears: we never shall forget
The mystic hush that seemed to fade
Away like sound, as down the glade
We passed beyond their zone of light.
Then through the forest's purple night
We trotted, at a pleasant speed,
With gay Pease-blossom and Mustard-seed.
PART IV
PEASE-BLOSSOM AND MUSTARD-SEED
Shyly we surveyed our guides
As through the gloomy woods we went
In the light that the straggling moonbeams lent:
We envied them their easy strides!
Pease-blossom in his crimson cap
And delicate suit of rose-leaf green,
His crimson sash and his jewelled dagger,
Strutted along with an elegant swagger
Which showed that he didn't care one rap
For anything less than a Fairy Queen:
His eyes were deep like the eyes of a poet,
Although his crisp and curly hair
Certainly didn't seem to show it!
While Mustard-seed was a devil-may-care
Epigrammatic and pungent fellow
Clad in a splendid suit of yellow,
With emerald stars on his glittering breast
And eyes that shone with a diamond light:
They made you feel sure it would always be best
To tell him the truth: he was not perhaps quite
So polite as Pease-blossom, but then who could be
Quite such a debonair fairy as he?