see,
Who has taken my heart with her nimble fingers,
Calls in my dreams to me;

Who has led me a dance by dell and dingle
My human soul to win,
Made me a changeling to my own, own mother,
A stranger to my kin.

THE HONEY ROBBERS

There were two Fairies, Gimmul and Mel,
Loved Earth Man's honey passing well;
Oft at the hives of his tame bees
They would their sugary thirst appease.

When dusk began to darken to night,
They would hie along in the fading light,
With elf-locked hair and scarlet lips,
And small stone knives to slit the skeps,
So softly not a bee inside
Should hear the woven straw divide:
And then with sly and greedy thumbs
Would rifle the sweet honeycombs.

And drowsily drone to drone would say,
'A cold, cold wind blows in this way';
And the great Queen would turn her head
From face to face, astonished,
And, though her maids with comb and brush
Would comb and soothe and whisper, 'Hush!'
About the hive would shrilly go
A keening -- keening, to and fro;
At which those robbers 'neath the trees
Would taunt and mock the honey-bees,
And through their sticky teeth would buzz
Just as an angry hornet does.

And when this Gimmul and this Mel
Had munched and sucked and swilled their fill,
Or ever Man's first cock could crow
Back to their Faerie Mounds they'd go;
Edging across the twilight air,
Thieves of a guise remotely fair.

LONGLEGS

Longlegs -- he yelled 'Coo-ee!'
And all across the combe
Shrill and shrill it rang -- rang through
The clear green gloom.
Fairies there were a-spinning,
And a white tree-maid
Lifted her eyes, and listened
In her rain-sweet glade.
Bunnie to bunnie stamped; old Wat
Chin-deep in bracken sate;
A throstle piped, 'I'm by, I'm by!'
Clear to his timid mate.
And there was Longlegs, straddling,
And hearkening was he,
To distant Echo thrilling back
A thin 'Coo-ee!'

MELMILLO

Three and thirty birds there stood
In an elder in a wood;
Called Melmillo -- flew off three,
Leaving thirty in the tree;
Called Melmillo -- nine now gone,
And the boughs held twenty-one;
Called Melmillo -- and eighteen
Left but three to nod and preen;
Called Melmillo -- three -- two -- one
Now of birds were feathers none.

Then stole Melmillo in
To that wood all dusk and green,
And with lean long palms outspread