We are met, this moonlight, for momentous councils
Concerning those two drowsy human lovers,
Maid Marian and her outlawed Robin Hood.
They are in dire peril; yet we may not break
Our vows of silence. Many a time
Has Robin Hood by kindly words and deeds
Done in his human world, sent a new breath
Of life and joy like Spring to fairyland;
And at the moth-hour of this very dew-fall,
He saved a fairy, whom he thought, poor soul,
Only a may-fly in a spider's web,
He saved her from the clutches of that Wizard,
That Cruel Thing, that dark old Mystery,
Whom ye all know and shrink from—
[Exclamations of horror from the fairies.]
Plucked her forth,
So gently that not one bright rainbow gleam
Upon her wings was clouded, not one flake
Of bloom brushed off—there lies the broken web.
Go, look at it; and here is pale Perilla
To tell you all the tale.
[The fairies cluster to look at the web, etc.]
A FAIRY
Can we not make them free
Of fairyland, like Shadow-of-a-Leaf, to come
And go, at will, upon the wings of dreams?
OBERON
Not till they lose their wits like Shadow-of-a-Leaf.
SHADOW-OF-A-LEAF