'Tis the middle watch of a summer's nightThe earth is dark, but the heavens are bright; Nought is seen in the vault on high But the moon, and the stars, and the cloudless sky, And the flood which rolls its milky hue, A river of light on the welkin blue. The moon looks down on old Cronest, She mellows the shades on his shaggy breast, And seems his huge gray form to throw In a silver cone on the wave below; 20 THE CULPRIT FAY. His sides are broken by spots of shade, The stars are on the moving stream, In an eel-like, spiral line below; And nought is heard on the lonely hill Of the gauze-winged katy-did; And the plaint of the wailing whip-poor-will, Ever a note of wail and wo, Till morning spreads her rosy wings, And earth and sky in her glances glow. III. 'Tis the hour of fairy ban and spell: THE CULPRIT FAY. He has counted them all with click and stroke, And he has awakened the sentry elve Who sleeps with him in the haunted tree, Twelve small strokes on his tinkling bell- Hither, hither, wing your way! "Tis the dawn of the fairy day." IV. They come from beds of lichen green, They creep from the mullen's velvet screen; From the silver tops of moon-touched trees, Where they swung in their cobweb hammocks high, And rocked about in the evening breeze; Some from the hum-bird's downy nest They had driven him out by elfin power, And, pillowed on plumes of his rainbow breast, Had slumbered there till the charmed hour; Some had lain in the scoop of the rock, With glittering ising-stars inlaid And some had opened the four-o'clock, And stole within its purple shade. 21 22 THE CULPRIT FAY. And now they throng the moonlight glade, Above-below-on every side, Their little minim forms arrayed In the tricksy pomp of fairy pride! V. They come not now to print the lea, He has loved an earthly maid, And left for her his woodland shade; He has lain upon her lip of dew, For this the shadowy tribes of air To the elfin court must haste away :And now they stand expectant there, To hear the doom of the Culprit Fay. THE CULPRIT FAY. 23 VI. The throne was reared upon the grass Of spice-wood and of sassafras; Hung the burnished canopy— On his brow the crown imperial shone, The prisoner Fay was at his feet, And his peers were ranged around the throne. He waved his sceptre in the air, He looked around and calmly spoke; His brow was grave and his eye severe, |