The Elf's Song.

I.     Where thronged poppies with globed shields          Of fierce red     Warrior all the harvest fields          Is my bed.     Here I tumble with the bee,     Robber bee of low degree          Gay with dust:     Wit ye of a bracelet bold     Broadly belting him with gold?     It was I who bound it on     When a-gambol on the lawn -          It can never rust.              II.     Where the glow-worm lights his lamp          There am I;     Where within the grasses damp          Crickets cry.     Cheer'ly, cheer'ly in the burne     Where the lins the torrents churn          Into foam,     Leap I on a whisp of broom, -     Cheer'ly, cheer'ly through the gloom, -     All aneath a round-cheeked moon,     Treading on her silver shoon          Lightly o'er the gloam,              III.     Or the cowslip on the bent          Lift her head,     Or the glow-worm's lamp be spent,          Whitely dead:     'Neath lank ferns I laughing lie,     'Neath the ferns full warily          Hid away,     Where the drowsy musk-rose blows     And a fussy runnel flows,     Sleeping with the Fary     Under leafy canopy          All the holyday.