THE FAIRIES DANCING

I heard along the early hills,

Ere yet the lark was risen up,

Ere yet the dawn with firelight fills

The night-dew of the bramble-cup,--

I heard the fairies in a ring

Sing as they tripped a lilting round

Soft as the moon on wavering wing.

The startlight shook as if with sound,

As if with echoing, and the stars

Pranked their bright eyes with trembling gleams;

While red with war the gusty Mars

Rained upon earth his ruddy beams.

He shone alone, low down the West,

While I, behind a hawthorn-bush,

Watched on the fairies flaxen-tressed

The fires of the morning flush.

Till, as a mist, their beauty died,

Their singing shrill and fainter grew;

And daylight tremulous and wide

Flooded the moorland through and through;

Till Urdon's copper weathercock

Was reared in golden flame afar,

And dim from moonlit dreams awoke

The towers and groves or Arroar.