The Elf's Song

I.

Where thronged poppies with globed shields
Of fierce red
Warrior all the harvest fields
Is my bed.
Here I tumble with the bee,
Robber bee of low degree
Gay with dust:
Wit ye of a bracelet bold
Broadly belting him with gold?
It was I who bound it on
When a-gambol on the lawn -
It can never rust.


II.

Where the glow-worm lights his lamp
There am I;
Where within the grasses damp
Crickets cry.
Cheer'ly, cheer'ly in the burne
Where the lins the torrents churn
Into foam,
Leap I on a whisp of broom, -
Cheer'ly, cheer'ly through the gloom, -
All aneath a round-cheeked moon,
Treading on her silver shoon
Lightly o'er the gloam,


III.

Or the cowslip on the bent
Lift her head,
Or the glow-worm's lamp be spent,
Whitely dead:
'Neath lank ferns I laughing lie,
'Neath the ferns full warily
Hid away,
Where the drowsy musk-rose blows
And a fussy runnel flows,
Sleeping with the Faë ry
Under leafy canopy
All the holyday.