Thus, by the malice of the skies,
And tasks their King would still devise,
The Fays beheld new toils arise
To bar their hope of resting;
As he who from the strand hath swum,
While in his ear the surges hum,
Sees evermore to meet him come
White flocks of billows cresting.
Which when at last they clearly knew,
Deep discontent upon them grew,
Till scarce a Fay did timber hew,
Or piled up clay or pebble,
Or hoisted load with strain and heft,
Or grained a door with fingers deft
And listless thoughts, but, hope-bereft,
At heart was half a rebel.
So, after setting of a sun,
When all their day’s long coil was done,
And dew on gossamer-threads late-spun
Beneath the moonbeams trembled,
Called to a chosen meeting-place,
Without the Town a frog-leap’s space,
To talk about their evil case
The Elfin folk assembled.
’Twas in good sooth a sight forlorn
To see them fagged and labour-worn,
Their dainty garments stained and torn,
Forms bowed with weary stooping;
Most like a bed of windflowers frail,
What time a shower of pelting hail
Hath smirched with mould the petals pale
And left the bruised stalks drooping.
And as when ruffling breeze-wafts go,
Now sighing loud, now moaning low,
