Читать книгу Shapes and Shadows - Cawein Madison Julius - Страница 6

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 Fête

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 Faëry 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.