Culprit Fay and Other Poems | Page 5

still,
To cross his path and work him ill.
They bade the wave
before him rise;
They flung the sea-fire in his eyes,
And they

stunned his ears with the scallop stroke,
With the porpoise heave and
the drum-fish croak.
Oh! but a weary wight was he
When he
reached the foot of the dog-wood tree;
- Gashed and wounded, and
stiff and sore,
He laid him down on the sandy shore;
He blessed the
force of the charmed line,
And he banned the water-goblin's spite,

For he saw around in the sweet moonshine,
Their little wee faces
above the brine,
Giggling and laughing with all their might
At the
piteous hap of the Fairy wight.
XVI.
Soon he gathered the balsam dew
From the sorrel leaf and the
henbane bud;
Over each wound the balm he drew,
And with
cobweb lint he stanched the blood.
The mild west wind was soft and
low,
It cooled the heat of his burning brow,
And he felt new life in
his sinews shoot,
As he drank the juice of the cal'mus root;
And
now he treads the fatal shore,
As fresh and vigorous as before.
XVII.
Wrapped in musing stands the sprite:
'Tis the middle wane of night,

His task is hard, his way is far,
But he must do his errand right

Ere dawning mounts her beamy car,
And rolls her chariot wheels of
light;
And vain are the spells of fairy-land,
He must work with a
human hand.
XVIII.
He cast a saddened look around,
But he felt new joy his bosom swell,

When, glittering on the shadowed ground,
He saw a purple muscle
shell;
Thither he ran, and he bent him low,
He heaved at the stern
and he heaved at the bow,
And he pushed her over the yielding sand,

Till he came to the verge of the haunted land.
She was as lovely a
pleasure boat
As ever fairy had paddled in,
For she glowed with
purple paint without,

And shone with silvery pearl within;
A

sculler's notch in the stern he made,
An oar he shaped of the bootle
blade;
Then spung to his seat with a lightsome leap,
And launched
afar on the calm blue deep.
XIX.
The imps of the river yell and rave;
They had no power above the
wave,
But they heaved the billow before the prow,
And they dashed
the surge against her side,
And they struck her keel with jerk and
blow,
Till the gunwale bent to the rocking tide.
She wimpled about
in the pale moonbeam,
Like a feather that floats on a wind
tossed-stream;
And momently athwart her track
The quarl upreared
his island back,
And the fluttering scallop behind would float,
And
patter the water about the boat;
But he bailed her out with his
colen-bell,
And he kept her trimmed with a wary tread,
While on
every side like lightening fell
The heavy strokes of his bootle-blade.
XX.
Onward still he held his way,
Till he came where the column of
moonshine lay,
And saw beneath the surface dim
The
brown-backed sturgeon slowly swim:
Around him were the goblin
train -
But he sculled with all his might and main,
And followed
wherever the sturgeon led,
Till he saw him upward point his head;

Then he dropped his paddle blade,
And held his colen goblet up
To
catch the drop in its crimson cup.
XXI.
With sweeping tail and quivering fin,
Through the wave the sturgeon
flew,
And, like the heaven-shot javelin,
He sprug above the waters
blue.
Instant as the star-fall light,
He plunged him in the deep again,

But left an arch of silver bright
The rainbow of the moony main.

It was a strange and lovely sight
To see the puny goblin there;

He
seemed an angel form of light,
With azure wing and sunny hair,


Throned on a cloud of purple fair,
Circled with blue and edged with
white,
And sitting at the fall of even
Beneath the bow of summer
heaven.
XXII.
A moment and its lustre fell,
But ere it met the billow blue,
He
caught within his crimson bell,
A droplet of its sparkling dew -
Joy
to thee, Fay! thy task is done,
Thy wings are pure, for the gem is won
-
Cheerly ply thy dripping oar,
And haste away to the elfin shore.
XXIII.
He turns, and lo! on either side
The ripples on his path divide;
And
the track o'er which his boat must pass
Is smooth as a sheet of
polished glass.
Around, their limbs the sea-nymphs lave,
With
snowy arms half swelling out,
While on the glossed and gleamy wave

Their sea-green ringlets loosely float;
They swim around with
smile and song;
They press the bark with pearly hand,
And gently
urge her course along,
Toward the beach of speckled sand;
And, as
he lightly leapt to land,
They bade adieu with nod and bow,
Then
gayly kissed each little hand,
And dropped in the crystal deep below.
XXIV.
A moment staied the fairy there;
He kissed the beach and breathed a
prayer,
Then spread his wings of gilded blue,
And on to the elfin
court he flew;
As ever ye saw a bubble rise,
And shine with a
thousand changing dyes,
Till lessening far through ether driven,
It
mingles with the hues of heaven:
As, at the glimpse of morning pale,

The lance-fly spreads his silken sail,
And gleams with blendings
soft and bright,
Till lost in the shades of fading night;
So rose