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THE CULPRIT FAY.

For shadowy hands have twitched the rein,
And flame-shot tongues around him played,
And near him many a fiendish eye
Glared with a fell malignity,

And yells of rage, and shrieks of fear,

Came screaming on his startled ear.

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THE CULPRIT FAY.

Howling the misty spectres flew,

They rend the air with frightful cries,

For he has gained the welkin blue,

And the land of clouds beneath him lies

XXIX.

Up to the cope careering swift

In breathless motion fast,

Fleet as the swallow cuts the drift,
Or the sea-roc rides the blast,
The sapphire sheet of eve is shot,
The sphered moon is past,
The earth but seems a tiny blot
On a sheet of azure cast.

O! it was sweet in the clear moonlight,
To tread the starry plain of even.

To meet the thousand eyes of night,

And feel the cooling breath of heaven;

But the Elfin made no stop or stay

Till he came to the bank of the milky-way,

Then he checked his courser's foot,

And watched for the glimpse of the planet-shoot.

XXX..

Sudden along the snowy tide

That swelled to meet their footsteps' fall,

THE CULPRIT FAY.

The sylphs of heaven were seen to glide,
Attired in sunset's crimson pall;
Around the Fay they weave the dance,
They skip before him on the plain,
And one has taken his wasp-sting lance,
And one upholds his bridle rein;

With warblings wild they lead him on

To where through clouds of amber seen,
Studded with stars, resplendent shone
The palace of the sylphid queen.
Its spiral columns gleaming bright
Were streamers of the northern lignt;
Its curtain's light and lovely flush
Was of the morning's rosy blush,
And the ceiling fair that rose aboon
The white and feathery fleece of noon.

XXXI.

But oh! how fair the shape that lay
Beneath a rainbow bending bright,

She seemed to the entranced Fay
The loveliest of the forms of light;

Her mantle was the purple rolled
At twilight in the west afar;

"T was tied with threads of dawning gold,
And buttoned with a sparkling star.

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THE CULPRIT FAY.

Her face was like the lily roon

That veils the vestal planet's hue;

Her eyes, two beamlets from the moon,
Set floating in the welkin blue.

Her hair is like the sunny beam,

And the diamond gems which round it gleam,

Are the pure drops of dewy even

That ne'er have left their native heaven.

XXXII.

She raised her eyes to the wondering sprite, And they leaped with smiles, for well I ween Never before in the bowers of light

Had the form of an earthly Fay been seen.

Long she looked in his tiny face;

Long with his butterfly cloak she played;

She smoothed his wings of azure lace,
And handled the tassel of his blade;

And as he told in accents low

She story of his love and wo,

She felt new pains in her bosom rise,

And the tear-drop started in her eyes.

And "O, sweet spirit of earth," she cried,

"Return no more to your woodland height, But ever here with me abide

In the land of everlasting light!

Within the fleecy drift we'll lie,

We'll hang upon the rainbow's rim;

THE CULPRIT FAY.

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And all the jewels of the sky

Around thy brow shall brightly beam!
And thou shalt bathe thee in the stream
That rolls its whitening foam aboon,
And ride upon the lightning's gleam,
And dance upon the orbed moon!
We'll sit within the Pleiad ring,

We'll rest on Orion's starry belt,

And I will bid my sylphs to sing

The song that makes the dew-mist melt;
Their harps are of the umber shade,
That hides the blush of waking day,
And every gleamy string is made

Of silvery moonshine's lengthened ray;
And thou shalt pillow on my breast,
While heavenly breathings float around,
And, with the sylphs of ether blest,
Forget the joys of fairy ground.”

XXXIII.

She was lovely and fair to see,
And the elfin's heart beat fitfully;
But lovelier far, and still more fair,
The earthly form imprinted there;
Nought he saw in the heavens above
Was half so dear as his mortal love,

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