A Touch of Fantasy

Fairy Land
William Shakespeare

Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moonè's sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green:
The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,
In those freckles live their savours:
I must go seek some dew-drops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.

The Thorn Tree
Madison Cawein

The night is sad with silver and the day is glad with gold,
And the woodland silence listens to a legend never old,
Of the Lady of the Fountain, whom the faery people know,
With her limbs of samite whiteness and her hair of golden glow,
Whom the boyish South Wind seeks for and the girlish-stepping Rain;
Whom the sleepy leaves still whisper men shall never see again:
She whose Vivien charms were mistress of the magic Merlin knew,
That could change the dew to glowworms and the glowworms into dew.
There's a thorn tree in the forest, and the faeries know the tree,
With its branches gnarled and wrinkled as a face with sorcery;
But the Maytime brings it clusters of a rainy fragrant white,
Like the bloom-bright brows of beauty or a hand of lifted light.
And all day the silence whispers to the sun-ray of the morn
How the bloom is lovely Vivien and how Merlin is the thorn:
How she won the doting wizard with her naked loveliness
Till he told her daemon secrets that must make his magic less.

How she charmed him and enchanted in the thorn-tree's thorns to lie
Forever with his passion that should never dim or die:
And with wicked laughter looking on this thing which she had done,
Like a visible aroma lingered sparkling in the sun:
How she stooped to kiss the pathos of an elf-lock of his beard,
In a mockery of parting and mock pity of his weird:
But her magic had forgotten that "who bends to give a kiss
Will but bring the curse upon them of the person whose it is":
So the silence tells the secret.--And at night the faeries see
How the tossing bloom is Vivien, who is struggling to be free,
In the thorny arms of Merlin, who forever is the tree.

excerpt from "La Belle Dame Sans Merc"
John Keats

I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful--a faery's child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.

I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She look'd at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.

I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faery's song.

Fragments on Nature and Life
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Come search the wood for flowers,--
Wild tea and wild pea,
Grapevine and succory,
Coreopsis
And liatris,
Flaunting in their bowers;
Grass with green flag half-mast high,
Succory to match the sky,
Columbine with horn of honey,
Scented fern and agrimony;
Forest full of essences
Fit for fairy presences,
Peppermint and sassafras,
Sweet fern, mint and vernal grass,
Panax, black birch, sugar maple,
Sweet and scent for Dian's table,
Eider-blow, sarsaparilla,
Wild rose, lily, dry vanilla,--
Spices in the plants that run
To bring their first fruits to the sun.
Earliest heats that follow frore
Nervèd leaf of hellebore,
Sweet willow, checkerberry red,
With its savory leaf for bread.
Silver birch and black
With the selfsame spice
Found in polygala root and rind,
Sassafras, fern, benzöine,
Mouse-ear, cowslip, wintergreen,
Which by aroma may compel
The frost to spare, what scents so well.

The Wood Witch
Madison Cawein

There is a woodland witch who lies
With bloom-bright limbs and beam-bright eyes,
Among the water-flags that rank
The slow brook's heron-haunted bank.
The dragon-flies, brass-bright and blue,
Are signs she works her sorcery through;
Weird, wizard characters she weaves
Her spells by under forest leaves,--
These wait her word, like imps, upon
The gray flag-pods; their wings, of lawn
And gauze; their bodies, gleaming green.
While o'er the wet sand,--left between
The running water and the still,--
In pansy hues and daffodil,

The fancies that she doth devise
Take on the forms of butterflies,
Rich-coloured.--And 'tis she you hear,
Whose sleepy rune, hummed in the ear
Of silence, bees and beetles purr,
And the dry-droning locusts whirr;
Till, where the wood is very lone,
Vague monotone meets monotone,
And slumber is begot and born,
A faery child beneath the thorn.
There is no mortal who may scorn
The witchery she spreads around
Her din demesne, wherein is bound
The beauty of abandoned time,
As some sweet thought 'twixt rhyme and rhyme.
And through her spells you shall behold
The blue turn gray, the gray turn gold

Of hollow heaven; and the brown
Of twilight vistas twinkled down
With fireflies; and in the gloom
Feel the cool vowels of perfume
Slow-syllabled of weed and bloom.
But, in the night, at languid rest,--
When like a spirit's naked breast
The moon slips from a silver mist,--
With star-bound brow, and star-wreathed wrist,
If you should see her rise and wave
You welcome--ah! what thing could save
You then? for evermore her slave!

The Faery Child
Lord Dunsanay

From the low white walls and the church's steeple
From our little fields under grass or grain,
I'm gone away to the faery people
I shall not come to the town again.

You may see a girl with my face and tresses,
You may see one come to my mother's door
Who may speak my words and may wear my dresses.
She will not be I, for I come no more.

I am gone, gone far, with the faeries roaming,
You may ask of me where the herons are
In the open marsh when the snipe are homing,
Or when no moon lights nor a single star.

On stormy nights when the streams are foaming
And a hint may come of my haunts afar,
With the reeds my floor and my roof the gloaming,
But I come no more to Ballynar.

Ask Father Ryan to read no verses
To call me back, for I am this day
From blessings far, and beyond curses.
No heaven shines where we ride away.

At speed unthought of in all your stables,
With the gods of old and the sons of Finn,
With the queens that reigned in the olden fables
And kings that won what a sword can win.

You may hear us streaming above your gables
On nights as still as a planet's spin;
But never stir from your chairs and tables
To call my name. I shall not come in.

For I am gone to the faery people.
Make the most of that other child
Who prays with you by the village steeple
I am gone away to the woods and wild.

I am gone away to the open spaces,
And whither riding no man may tell;
But I shall look upon all your faces
No more in Heaven or Earth or Hell.

Elves
D. J. Conway

By the fern brake, deep and shady,
There I met an elfin lady.
Dressed in cobweb silk and flowers,
There she whiled away the hours,

Waiting until dark.

On the soft green moss beside her,
Lay a baby wrapped in eider.
Skin so fair and hair like midnight,
The lady watched the coming twilight,

Waiting till ‘twas dark.

Silently, I sat beside her,
Hoping for some words to gather
in my numb and startled mind.
Said the lady, You’re most kind

to wait with me till dark.

Are you lost? I asked the lady.
Is this your home, this fern brake shady?
Will others come by star and Moon?
She only smiled, began to croon

To the elfin child.

The baby slept. The lady told me
Deep magic of the Earth and Sea.
Spells she whispered, strong and old.
Use them well, she said. Be bold

When spelling in the night.

Can I work these? The lady smiled,
Gathered up her sleeping child.
Oh yes, she answered, ’Tis a boon
For waiting with me till the Moon

Slips up the sky.

Thinking deep, I sat beside her,
Keeping watch. I heard the rider
Coming through the fern brake shady.
Are you there, my lovely lady?

Called an elfin voice.

An elfin lord, his clothes all viney,
Armed with sword and dagger shiny,
Rode his horse into the fern brake.
Then my heart began to quake

On seeing his dark eyes.

Twilight gathered; birds were still.
The Moon came up above the hill.
Suddenly I felt alone.
Have no fear, for you have sown

Good friendship.

The lady smiled and raised her hand.
Upon her brow a shining band
Glistened by the light of Moon.
Would you too give forth a boon?

She asked her lord.

For here is friend, a watcher bold.
But they are enemies of old,
The elf lord answered.
No, she said,
But guarded us in this fern bed.

He smiled.

So there are some who wish us well.
His voice was like a distant bell.
A ring he took from off his hand.
This will tune you to the land

and magic.

Its stone was pale, just like the Moon.
The air was filled with eldritch tune,
As they mounted, lord and lady,
rode off through the fern brake shady.

I stood alone.

People say elves are not there.
But I have heard their voices fair,
When I sit down in the brake.
Magic spells I’ve learned to make

All from the lady.

Elf lord’s ring is on my hand
to help with magic from the land.
Sometimes I talk with lord and lady
In the fern brake, deep and shady,

Secretly.

Is there magic? For me ‘tis so.

Where Echo Dwells
Clinton Scollard

Some summer morn immersed in calm,
When every wafture breathes of balm,
Take you the pathway under hill,
Night-haunted by the whippoorwill,
Until, where beech and birch confer,
And hemlocks make their harp-like stir,
A sweeping amphitheatre
Opes, golden green, upon the view;
There Echo dwells, and waits for you.

The elderberry every hour
Adds to the purple of its dower;
With every dusk, with every dawn,
The mandrake fruit takes amber on;
A gossip brook gives happy hint
Of spruce and sassafras and mint;
While overhead, a luring tint,
The vast vault arches, virgin blue;
There Echo dwells, and waits for you.

If you bespeak her loud or low,
At night-heart, or at morning-glow,
Trump-clear, or subtle-sweet and shy,
Swiftly her voice will make reply.
Never beheld, or near or far,
Elusive as blown perfumes are,
Evasive as a falling star,
With all her arid retinue,
Fair Echo dwells, and waits for you!

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