THE RUIN

When the last colours of the day

Have from their burning ebbed away,

About that ruin, cold and lone,

The cricket shrills from stone to stone;

And scattering o'er its darkened green,

Bands of the fairies may be seen,

Chattering like grasshoppers, their feet

Dancing a thistledown dance round it:

While the great gold of the mild moon

Tinges their tiny acorn shoon.