O Chatterton! that thou wert yet alive! And we, at sober eve, would round thee throng, SONGS OF THE PIXIES. THE PIXIES, in the superstition of Devonshire, are a race of beings invisibly small, and harmless or friendly to man. At a small distance from a village in that county, half way up a wood-covered hill, is an excavation called the Pixies' Parlour. The roots of old trees form its ceiling; and on its sides are innumerable cyphers, among which the author discovered his own and those of his brothers, cut by the hand of their childhood. At the foot of the hill flows the river Otter. To this place the Author, during the Summer months of the year 1793, conducted a party of young ladies; one of whom, of stature elegantly small, and of complexion colourless yet clear, was proclaimed the Faery Queen. On which occasion the following Irregular Ode was written. I. WHOм the untaught Shepherds call Welcome, Ladies! to our cell. Here the wren of softest note Builds its nest and warbles well; Here the blackbird strains his throat; II. When fades the moon to shadowy-pale, Hath streak'd the East with rosy light, III. But not our filmy pinion Aye from the sultry heat We to the cave retreat O'ercanopied by huge roots intertwined With wildest texture, blackened o'er with age: Round them their mantle green the ivies bind, Beneath whose foliage pale Fanned by the unfrequent gale We shield us from the Tyrant's mid-day rage. IV. Thither, while the murmuring throng And heaves the gentle misery of a sigh As round our sandy grot appear Weaving gay dreams of sunny-tinctured hue O'er his hush'd soul our soothing witcheries shed And twine the future garland round his head. V. When Evening's dusky car Crowned with her dewy star Steals o'er the fading sky in shadowy flight; We tremble to the breeze Veiled from the grosser ken of mortal sight. Along our wildly-bowered sequestered walk, The glance, that from the half-confessing eye VI. Or through the mystic ringlets of the vale Circling the Spirit of the Western Gale, Where wearied with his flower-caressing sport, Supine he slumbers on a violet bank; Then with quaint music hymn the parting gleam By lonely Otter's sleep-persuading stream; Or where his wave with loud unquiet song Dashed o'er the rocky channel froths along; Or where, his silver waters smoothed to rest, The tall tree's shadow sleeps upon his breast. VII. Hence thou lingerer, Light! Mother of wildly-working dreams! we view Thy power the Pixies own, And clouds in watery colours drest VIII. Welcome, Ladies! to the cell Where the blameless Pixies dwell: |