The World Of Faery

I.     When in the pansy-purpled stain     Of sunset one far star is seen,     Like some bright drop of rain,     Out of the forest, deep and green,     O'er me at Spirit seems to lean,     The fairest of her train. II.     The Spirit, dowered with fadeless youth,     Of Lay and Legend, young as when,     Close to her side, in sooth,     She led me from the marts of men,     A child, into her world, which then     To me was true as truth. III.     Her hair is like the silken husk     That holds the corn, and glints and glows;     Her brow is white as tusk;     Her body like a wilding rose,     And through her gossamer raiment shows     Like starlight closed in musk. IV.     She smiles at me; she nods at me;     And by her looks I am beguiled     Into the mystery     Of ways I knew when, as a child,     She led me 'mid her blossoms wild     Of faery fantasy. V.     The blossoms that, when night is here,     Become sweet mouths that sigh soft tales;     Or, each, a jewelled ear     Leaned to the elfin dance that trails     Down moonrayed cirques of haunted vales     To cricket song and cheer. VI.     The blossoms that, shut fast all day,     Primrose and poppy, darkness opes,     Slowly, to free a fay,     Who, silken-soft, leaps forth and ropes     With rain each web that, starlit, slopes     Between each grassy spray. VII.     The blossoms from which elves are born,     Sweet wombs of mingled scent and snow,     Whose deeps are cool as morn;     Wherein I oft have heard them blow     Their pixy trumpets, silvery low     As some bee's drowsy horn. VIII.     So was it when my childhood roamed     The woodland's dim enchanted ground,     Where every mushroom domed     Its disc for them to revel 'round;     Each glow-worm forged its flame, green drowned     In hollow snow that foamed IX.     Of lilies, for their lantern light,     To lamp their dance beneath the moon;     Each insect of the night,     That rasped its thin, vibrating tune,     And owl that raised its sleepy croon,     Made music for their flight. X.     So is it still when twilight fills     My soul with childhood's memories     That haunt the far-off hills,     And people with dim things the trees,     With faery forms that no man sees,     And dreams that no man kills. XI.     Then all around me sway and swing     The Puck-lights of their firefly train,     Their elfin revelling;     And in the bursting pods, that rain     Their seeds around my steps, again     I hear their footsteps ring; XII.     Their faery feet that fall once more     Within my way; and then I see,     As oft I saw before,     Her Spirit rise, who shimmeringly     Fills all my world with poetry,     The Loveliness of Yore.