Classic Poem

By the woodland deep and green,
By the starlight's silver sheen;
By the Moon-Queen's mystic light,
By this hush of holy night,
By the zephyr's twice-weaved spell,
Ho! ye powers invisible,
Leet of Elfin, Iris Throng,
Unto whom these groves belong
And by laws of ancient date,
Found in scrolls of Faërie Fate,
Stream and font are dedicate;
Wheresoe'er your wings may gleam—
Vistas on the verge of dream,
Haunts beyond the rainbow set
Under walks of violet—
Hearts and hearths of human kind
Better suit the elfin mind.
We adjure you, keep no more
Homeless state on splendid shore,
But with spells of magic birth
Once again make glad the earth!

Here in glade and dingle sweet
Ye may find a close retreat:
Can ye wish for softer bed
Than the moss that here is spread?
Here the mavis' voice is heard,
Every late and early bird;
Here the tendril's slender string
Deftly hangs, a faërie swing;
Purling brooks and founts that play
Make sweet music night and day;
And in lakes which stedfast lie
Under Heaven's eternal eye,
The blown lilies waiting float,
Each to serve as elfin boat.
Never do the evening dews
Nectar to the flowers refuse;
Like the blackbird's liquid note
The wind breathes in the wind's throat:
Who shall find a fairer spot?
Linger, fairies, linger not!

Still the woods are dark and lonely!
There the throstle calleth only—
There alone the throstle calleth
As the silent twilight falleth.
All the old mage-spells are broken,
All the ancient charms unspoken:
Who to human tongues shall teach
That forgotten sylphid speech
By whose aid the weirds of old
Did with Nature commune hold?

'Tis the darken'd human heart
Whence the Elfin Lords depart!
Ye who now this loss deplore,
All who would their reign restore,
Seek from mystic gifts of sight
Hallows for the heart of night;
Seek for depths of thoughts serene
Soften'd through the deeps of green,
For the open eye which looks
Further than the life of books,
And in any stone discerns
What a heart of wonder burns,
Finding all about it lie
Brimming wells of sorcery.
Virgin thoughts are brightest chrism
In the mystical baptism,
Which, to those elected duly,
Lifts all veils, revealing truly
Elfin worlds in rapt clairvoyance,
Elfin marvels, Elfin joyance,
Elfin vistas, Elfin vision,
Elfin voices, dreams elysian,
Fay-built isles and seas that be
Glamour all and gramarye.
Where shall point the Elfin wing?
Worlds of pure imagining;
Then where wonder rules the heart
Thence shall fairies ne'er depart!