and yet more clear came
the words of the song from Samoa. Clearer and louder, moment by moment,
rose the voice of Queen Mab, where she stood on the Calling Place of the
Gods, and chanted to the Islands, and to the sea, and the dwellers in
the sea. It was not that she left her stand, nor came nearer, but the
Sacred Island itself was steering straight, like a magical barque, drawn
by the wonderful song, to the mystic shore of Samoa. Now Queen Mab,
where she stood among her court, with the strange brown fairies of the
Southern Ocean, could behold the Sacred Island, with all its fairy crew.
Beautiful things they seemed, as the sailing isle drew nearer, beautiful
and naked, and brave with purple pan-danus flowers, and with red and
yellow necklets of the scented seed of the pandanus. At last Queen Mab,
the fairy in the fluttering wings of green, clapped her hands, and, with
a little soft shock, the Sacred Island ran in and struck on the haunted
beach of Samoa. What was Queen Mab doing here, so far away from England?
England she had left long ago; when the Puritans arose the Fairies
vanished. When 'Tom came home from labour and Cis from milking rose,'
there was now no more sound of tabor, nor 'merrily went their toes.'
Tom went to the Public House or the Preaching House, and Cis--Cis waited
till Tom should come home and kick her into a jelly (his toes going
merrily enough at that work), or tell her she was, spiritually, in a
parlous case. So the Fairy Queen and all her court had long since fled
from England, and long ago made a home in the undiscovered isles of
the South. Now they all met and mingled in the throng of the Polynesian
fairy folk, and, rushing down into the waters, they revelled all night
on the silvery sand, in the windless dancing places of the deep. Tane
and Tawhiti came, the Gods of the tides and the shores, and all the
fairies sang to them:

'Tawhiti, on the sacred beach
The purple pandanus is thine!
How soft the breakers come and go,
How bright the fragrant berries blow,
The fern-tree scents the shining reach,
And Tane dances down the brine!'

Such is the poetry of the Polynesian fairies. It is addicted to frequent
repetitions of the same obvious remark, and it does not contain a
Criticism of Life, so we do not give any more of it. But, such as it
was, it seemed to afford great pleasure to the dancers, probably because
every one of them could compose any amount of it himself,