And dancing of Fairies
In desolate hollows,

And wraiths of the mountain,
And rolling of dragons

By warble of water,

Or cataract music

Of falling torrents,

Flitted the Gleam.

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Down from the mountain

And over the level,

And streaming and shining on

Silent river,

Silvery willow,

Pasture and plowland,

Innocent maidens,

Garrulous children,

Homestead and harvest,

Reaper and gleaner,
And rough-ruddy faces
Of lowly labor,
Slided the Gleam-

Then, with a melody
Stronger and statelier,
Led me at length

To the city and palace
Of Arthur the King;
Touch'd at the golden
Cross of the churches,
Flash'd on the Tournament,

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Flicker'd and bicker'd
From helmet to helmet,
And last on the forehead
Of Arthur the blameless
Rested the Gleam.

14

74

Clouds and darkness
Closed upon Camelot;
Arthur had vanish'd
I knew not whither,
The king who loved me,
And cannot die;

For out of the darkness

Silent and slowly

The Gleam, that had waned to a wintry

glimmer

On icy fallow

And faded forest,

Drew to the valley
Named of the shadow,
And slowly brightening
Out of the glimmer,

And slowly moving again to a melody

GOD sends his teachers unto every age,
To every clime, and every race of men,
With revelations fitted to their growth
And shape of mind, nor gives the realm of
Truth

Into the selfish rule of one sole race:
Therefore each form of worship that hath
swayed

The life of man, and given it to grasp
The master-key of knowledge, reverence,

Enfolds some germs of goodness and of right;
Else never had the eager soul, which loathes 10
The slothful down of pampered ignorance,

Found in it even a moment's fitful rest.

There is an instinct in the human heart Which makes that all the fables it hath coined, To justify the reign of its belief

And strengthen it by beauty's right divine,

Veil in their inner cells a mystic gift,
Which, like the hazel twig, in faithful hands,
Points surely to the hidden springs of truth.
For, as in nature naught is made in vain,
But all things have within their hull of use
A wisdom and a meaning which may speak
Of spiritual secrets to the ear

Of spirit; so, in whatsoe'er the heart
Hath fashioned for a solace to itself,
To make its inspirations suit its creed,
And from the niggard hands of falsehood
wring

Its needful food of truth, there ever is

A sympathy with Nature, which reveals,

Not less than her own works, pure gleams of

light

And earnest parables of inward lore.
Hear now this fairy legend of old Greece,
As full of freedom, youth, and beauty still
As the immortal freshness of that grace
Carved for all ages on some Attic frieze.

A youth named Rhocus, wandering in the
wood,

Saw an old oak just trembling to its fall,
And, feeling pity of so fair a tree,

He propped its gray trunk with admiring care,

20

30

And with a thoughtless footstep loitered on. 40 But, as he turned, he heard a voice behind

That murmured

leaves,

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Rhocus! 'T was as if the

Stirred by a passing breath, had murmured it.