Dizzily round
On the elf-hills white in the yellow moonlight
To a sweet, unholy, ravishing sound
Of wizard voices from underground,
Their mazy dance the Elle-maids wound
On St. John's Eve.
II
Beautiful white,
Like a wreath of mist by the starbeams kissed;
And frail, sweet faces bloomed out on the night
From floating tresses of glow-worm light,
That puffed like foam to the left and the right
On St. John's Eve.
III
Warily there
They flashed like a rill which the moonbeams fill,
But I saw what a mockery all of them were
With their hollow bodies, when the moonlit air
Rayed out through their eyes with a sudden glare
On St. John's Eve.
IV
Solemnly sweet,
By the river's banks in the rushes' ranks,
The Necks their sorrowful songs repeat:
A music of winds over dipping wheat,
Of moss-dulled cascades seemed to meet
On St. John's Eve.
V
Drowsily swam
The fire-flies fleet in eddies of heat;
Through the willows a glimmer of gold harps came,
And I saw their hair like a misty flame
Bunched over white brows, too white to name,
On St. John's Eve.
VI