THE ELF'S SONG.

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.

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,

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 Faery

Under leafy canopy

All the holyday.