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Come away, O human child To the waters and the wild ... With a fairy, hand in hand. For the world is more full of weeping Than you can understand. When the wave of moonlight glosses The dim gray sands with light ... We foot it all the night, Weaving olden dances, Mingling hands and mingling glances Til' the moon has taken flight ... (By William Butler Yeats)
The Fairies
Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We daren't go a-hunting
For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owl's feather!
Down along the rocky shore
Some make their home,
They live on crispy pancakes
Of yellow tide-foam;
Some in the reeds
Of the black mountain-lake,
With frogs for their watch-dogs,
All night awake.
High on the hill-top
The old King sits;
He is now so old and gray
He's nigh lost his wits.
With a bridge of white mist
Columbkill he crosses
On his stately journeys
From Slieveleague to Rosses;
Or going up with music
On cold starry nights,
To sup with the Queen
Of the gay Northern Lights.
They stole little Bridget
For seven years long;
When she came down again
Her friends were all gone.
They took her lightly back,
Between the night and morrow,
They thought that she was fast asleep,
But she was dead with sorrow.
They have kept her ever since
Deep within the lake,
On a bed of flag-leaves,
Watching till she wake.
By the craggy hill-side,
Through the mosses bare,
They have planted thorn-trees
For pleasure here and there.
Is any man so daring
As to dig one up in spite,
He shall find the thornies set
In his bed at night.
Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We daren't go a-hunting
For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owl's feather!
~by William Allingham
The Fairy Child
From the low white walls and the church's steeple
From our little fields under grass or grain,
I'm gone away to the fairy people
I shall not come to the town again.
You may see a girl with my face and tresses,
You may see one come to my mother's door
Who may speak my words and may wear my dresses.
She will not be I, for I come no more.
I am gone, gone far, with the fairies roaming,
You may ask of me where the herons are
In the open marsh when the snipe are homing,
Or when no moon lights nor a single star.
On stormy nights when the streams are foaming
And a hint may come of my haunts afar,
With the reeds my floor and my roof the gloaming,
But I come no more to Ballynar.
Ask Father Ryan to read no verses
To call me back, for I am this day
From blessings far, and beyond curses.
No heaven shines where we ride away.
At speed unthought of in all your stables,
With the gods of old and the sons of Finn,
With the queens that reigned in the olden fables
And kings that won what a sword can win.
You may hear us streaming above your gables
On nights as still as a planet's spin;
But never stir from your chairs and tables
To call my name. I shall not come in.
For I am gone to the fairy people.
Make the most of that other child
Who prays with you by the village steeple
I am gone away to the woods and wild.
I am gone away to the open spaces,
And whither riding no man may tell;
But I shall look upon all your faces
No more in Heaven or Earth or Hell.
~by Lord Dunsanay
