“Not so,” spake he in accents grave,
“No more for us the deep woods wave,
Tho’ dear the home their greenery gave,
Tho’ long our hearts may rue them;
“Tho’ fain were I, if this might be,
Down yon cool shades all care to flee,
And very fain would watch your glee
Wax as in good days golden—
For, lo, the dream, whose power undid
That ill witch-charm, a secret hid,
Which hath, while fouler harm it rid,
So fair a hope withholden.
“Mark well, ye Fays: In years long fled,
When Earthland first felt Elfin tread—
But whence, or how, or why we sped,
I wot our wisest knows not—
The Fate who did our journeyings guide
Ne’er destined that, whate’er betide,
This ball must aye our dwelling bide,
A prison whose doors unclose not.
“That weird-night’s vision warns me so—
Had meshed us soon in webs of woe,
Whence Fate hath willed we free should go,
Long since to me confiding
The word whereby, if need befal,
Aërial chariots I may call,
Mage-fashioned, meet to waft us all
Up ways heaven’s vault dividing.
“Yet here so long, so blithe, we dwelled,
So dear our haunts by flood and feld,
That evermore I hoped and held
Such word need ne’er be spoken,
Now from me wrung by darkening doom,
As menace-murk of thunder-gloom
Bids shun hurled bolt and bellowing boom
Ere yet the storm hath broken.
“No plainer speech my lips dare frame;
But, soothly, had ye seen the same,
Each idle moment would ye blame
That us from flight doth sever,
Not loitering o’er what rests to do
Ere hence we float up yonder blue,
Self-exiled from the paths we knew—
For ever and for ever.”
I trow that every Fay who heard
Was grieved at heart by Oberon’s word,
Yet none lamented, none demurred,
Or against his will besought him;
For in his steadfast-mournful eyne
They could some fatal truth divine,
Tho’ none might know what boding sign
To stern resolve had wrought him.
And ’tis a riddle still ungues’t
What vision from that mirror’s breast
Was flashed athwart King Oberon’s rest,
So filled with fear and wonder.
Some say that unto him were shown
Days when round earth, once green and lone,
Shall whirl with cities all o’ergrown,
No Elf-ring’s circle asunder;
And say he saw or ever he woke
High heaven blurred out with riftless smoke,
Where men ground down ’neath labour’s yoke
Toil to the mad wheel’s thunder;
World weeded o’er from prime to prime
With want, and woe, and care, and crime,
Unmeet to tell in Faery rime,
That halts such burden under.
Howbeit, the Elves in eager crowd
Made haste to raze those mansions proud;
Anon the rill-cliffs echoed loud
To crash of timbers falling,
As toppling towers at onslaught rude
Reeled down in wrack, and street-rows strewed
Their swift-wrought ruin, whence captives shrewd
Slipped homeward, warily crawling.
Till soon, if wanderer chanced to fare
Across that earth-patch smooth and bare,
He spied no Elfin doings there,
And only heard a rustle
Where shrivelled leaves their serest brown
Thro’ Autumn mists had drifted down.
This was the end of Elfintown,
Built with such coil and bustle.