Gramarye.

There are some things that entertain me more     Than men or books; and to my knowledge seem     A key of Poetry, made of magic lore     Of childhood, opening many a fabled door     Of superstition, mystery, and dream              Enchantment locked of yore.     For, when through dusking woods my pathway lies,     Often I feel old spells, as o'er me flits     The bat, like some black thought that, troubled, flies     Round some dark purpose; or before me cries     The owl that, like an evil conscience, sits              A shadowy voice and eyes.     Then, when down blue canals of cloudy snow     The white moon oars her boat, and woods vibrate     With crickets, lo, I hear the hautboys blow     Of Elf-land; and when green the fireflies glow,     See where the goblins hold a Fairy Fte              With lanthorn row on row.     Strange growths, that ooze from long-dead logs and spread     A creamy fungus, where the snail, uncoiled,     And fat slug feed at morn, are Pixy bread     Made of the yeasted dew; the lichens red,     Besides these grown, are meat the Brownies broiled              Above a glow-worm bed.     The smears of silver on the webs that line     The tree's crook'd roots, or stretch, white-wove, within     The hollow stump, are stains of Fary wine     Spilled on the cloth where Elf-land sat to dine,     When night beheld them drinking, chin to chin,              O' the moon's fermented shine.     What but their chairs the mushrooms on the lawn,     Or toadstools hidden under flower and fern,     Tagged with the dotting dew! - With knees updrawn     Far as his eyes, have I not come upon     PUCK seated there? but scarcely 'round could turn              Ere, presto! he was gone.     And so though Science from the woods hath tracked     The Elfin; and with prosy lights of day     Unhallowed all his haunts; and, dulling, blacked     Our eyesight, still hath Beauty never lacked     For seers yet; who, in some wizard way,              Prove Fancy real as Fact.