THE HIDEOUS HERMIT

Ah, what wonders round us rose

When we dared to pause and look,

Curious things that seemed all toes,

Goblins from a picture-book;

Ants like witches, four feet high,

Waving all their skinny arms,

Glared at us and wandered by,

Muttering their ancestral charms.

Stately forms in green and gold

Armour strutted through the glades,

Just as Hamlet's ghost, we're told,

Mooned among the midnight shades:

Once a sort of devil came

Scattering broken trees about,

Winged with leather, eyed with flame,—

He was but a moth, no doubt.

Here and there, above us clomb

Feathery clumps of palm on high:

Those were ferns, of course, but some

Really seemed to touch the sky;

Yes; and down one fragrant glade,

Listening as we onward stole,

Half delighted, half afraid,

Dong, we heard the hare-bells toll!

Something told us what that gleam

Down the glen was brooding o'er;

Something told us in a dream

What the bells were tolling for!

Something told us there was fear,

Horror, peril, on our way!

Was it far or was it near?

Near, we heard the night-wind say.

Toll, the music reeled and pealed

Through the vast and sombre trees,

Where a rosy light revealed

Dimmer, sweeter mysteries;

And, like petals of the rose,

Fairy fans in beauty beat,

Light in light — ah, what were those

Rhymes we heard the night repeat?

Toll, a dream within a dream,

Up an aisle of rose and blue,

Up the music's perfumed stream

Came the words, and then we knew,

Then, with one great indrawn breath,

Such a sighin’ and a sobbin’

Rose all round us for the death

Of poor, poor Cock Robin,

Oh, we could n't bear to wait

Even to hear the murderer's fate,

Which we'd often wished to know

Sitting in the fireside glow

And with hot revengeful looks

Searched for in the nursery-books;

For the Robin and the Wren

Are such friends to mortal men,

Such dear friends to mortal men!

Toll; and through the woods once more

Stole we, drenched with fragrant dew:

Toll; the hare-bell's burden bore

Deeper meanings than we knew:

Still it told us there was fear,

Horror, peril on our way!

Was it far or was it near?

Near, we heard the night-wind say!

Near; and once or twice we saw

Something like a monstrous eye,

Something like a hideous claw

Steal between us and the sky:

Still we hummed a dauntless tune

Trying to think such things might be

Glimpses of the fairy moon

Hiding in some hairy tree.

Yet around us as we went

Through the glades of rose and blue

Sweetness with the horror blent

Wonder-wild in scent and hue:

Here Aladdin's cavern yawned,

Jewelled thick with gorgeous dyes;

There a head of clover dawned

Like a cloud In eastern skies.

Hills of topaz, lakes of dew,

Fairy cliffs of crystal sheen

Passed we; and the forest's blue

Sea of branches tossed between:

Once we saw a gryphon make

One soft iris as it passed

Like the curving meteor's wake

O'er the forest, far and fast.

Winged with purple, breathing flame,

Crimson-eyed we saw him go,

Where — ah! could it be the same

Cockchafer we used to know?—

Valley-lilies overhead,

High aloof in clustered spray,

Far through heaven their splendour spread,

Glimmering like the Milky Way.

Mammoths father calls “extinct,”

Creatures that the cave-men feared,

Through that forest walked and blinked,

Through that jungle crawled and leered;

Beasts no Nimrod ever knew,

Woolly bears black and red;

Crocodiles, we wondered who

Ever dared to see them fed,

Were they lizards? If they were,

They could swallow us with ease;

But they slumbered quietly there

In among the mighty trees;

Red and silver, blue and green,

Played the moonlight on their scales;

Golden eyes they had, and lean

Crookèd legs with cruel nails.

Yet again, oh, faint and far,

Came the shadow of a cry,

Like the calling of a star

To its brother in the sky;

Like an echo in a cave

Where young mermen sound their shells,

Like the wind across a grave

Bright with scent of lily-bells.

Like a fairy hunter's horn

Sounding in some purple glen

Sweet revelly to the morn

And the fairy quest again:

Then, all round it surged a song

We could never understand

Though it lingered with us long,

And it seemed so sad and grand.