When men do traps and engines set In loope holes, where the vermine creepe, Who from their foldes and houses get Their duckes and geese, and lambes and sheepe; And enter in, From hag-bred Merlin's time have I Thus nightly revell'd to and fro : And for my prankes, men call me by The name of Robin Good-Fellow. Friends, ghosts, and sprites Who haunt the nightes, The hags and goblins do me know, And beldames old My feates have told, So vale, vale, ho, ho, ho! Anonymous-attributed to BEN JONSON, about 1600. SLAVIC. AN OLD BALLAD. The maiden went for water To the well o'er the meadow away; She there could draw no water, So thick the frost it lay. The mother she grew angry, She had it long to bemoan; "O daughter mine, O daughter mine, I would thou wert a stone!" The maiden's water-pitcher There came one day two lads, Two minstrels young they were; "We've traveled far, my brother, Such a maple we saw nowhere. "Come let us cut a fiddle, One fiddle for me and you, And from the same fine maple, For each one, fiddlesticks two." They cut into the maple Then splashed the blood so red; The lads fell to the ground, So sore were they afraid. Then spake from within the maiden: "Wherefore afraid are you? Cut out of me one fiddle, And for each one fiddlesticks two. "Then go and play right sadly, The lads they went, and sadly "O lads, dear lads, be silent, My pain doth never cease!" Translated by MRS. ROBINSON, COTTAGE FAIRY. "Sisters! I have seen this night A hundred cottage fires burn bright, In the burning blaze, and the gleam declining. I care, not I, for the stars above, The lights on earth are the lights I love; Let Venus blur the evening air, Uprise at morn Prince Lucifer; But those little tiny stars be mine That through the softened copse-wood shine, But I vail'd mine eyes with the silken twine She 'gan to talk with bashful glee The infants playing on the floor, At these wild words their sports gave o'er, When they are gladly innocent; We see her dancing in a ring, And hear the blessed creature sing- Then pluck'd I a wreath with many a gem And through the wicket, with a glide And wreath'd the blossoms in her hair. 'Who placed these flowers on William's head?' The little wondering sister said, 'A wreath not half so bright and gay, Crown'd me, upon the morn of May, I skimmed away, and with delight Once more I dropp'd on earth below JOHN WILSON. FAIRIES IN THE HIGHLANDS. FROM THE "OULPRIT FAY." The moon looks down on old Cro'nest, She mellows the shades on his shaggy breast, In a silver cone on the wave below; Like starry twinkles that momently break Through the rifts of the gathering tempest's rack. The stars are on the moving stream, In an eel-like, spiral line below; And the plaint of the wailing whippowil, Till morning spreads her rosy wings, 'Tis the hour of fairy ban and spell : And he has awaken'd the sentry elve, Who sleeps with him in the haunted tree, To bid him ring the hour of twelve, And call the fays to their revelry. Twelve small strokes on his tinkling bell ('Twas made of the white snail's pearly shell)— 66 Midnight comes, and all is well! Hither, hither, wing your way! 'Tis the dawn of the fairy day." They come from beds of lichen green, They creep from the mullein's velvet screen; Some on the backs of beetles fly, From the silver tops of moon-touched trees, Where they swung in their cobweb-hammocks high, And rock'd about in the evening breeze; Some from the hum-bird's downy nest They had driven him out by elfin power, And, pillow'd on plumes of his rainbow breast, Had slumber'd there till the charmed hour; Some had lain in the scoop of the rock, With glittering ising-stars inlaid; And some had open'd the four-o'clock, |