All Sherwood glittered with their prismy goblets
Brimming the thrice refined and luscious dew
Not only of our own most purplest violets,
But of strange fragrance, wild exotic nectars,
Drawn from the fairy blossoms of some star
Beyond our tree-tops! Ay, beyond that moon
Which is our natural limit--the big lamp
Heaven lights upon our boundary.

ORCHIS

Mighty King,
The Court is all attendant on thy word.

OBERON

[_With great dignity._]

Elves, pixies, nixies, gnomes and leprechauns,

[_He pauses._]

We are met, this moonlight, for momentous councils
Concerning those two drowsy human lovers,
Maid Marian and her outlawed Robin Hood.
They are in dire peril; yet we may not break
Our vows of silence. Many a time
Has Robin Hood by kindly words and deeds
Done in his human world, sent a new breath
Of life and joy like Spring to fairyland;
And at the moth-hour of this very dew-fall,
He saved a fairy, whom he thought, poor soul,
Only a may-fly in a spider's web,
He saved her from the clutches of that Wizard,
That Cruel Thing, that dark old Mystery,
Whom ye all know and shrink from--

[_Exclamations of horror from the fairies._]

Plucked her forth,
So gently that not one bright rainbow gleam
Upon her wings was clouded, not one flake
Of bloom brushed off--there lies the broken web.
Go, look at it; and here is pale Perilla
To tell you all the tale.

[_The fairies cluster to look at the web, etc._]

A FAIRY

Can we not make them free
Of fairyland, like Shadow-of-a-Leaf, to come
And go, at will, upon the wings of dreams?

OBERON

Not till they lose their wits like Shadow-of-a-Leaf.

SHADOW-OF-A-LEAF

Can I not break my fairy vows and tell?

OBERON

Only on pain of what we fairies call
Death!

SHADOW-OF-A-LEAF

Death?

OBERON

Never to join our happy revels,
Never to pass the gates of fairyland
Again, but die like mortals. What that means
We do not know--who knows?

SHADOW-OF-A-LEAF

If I could save them!--
I am only Shadow-of-a-Leaf!

OBERON

There is a King
Beyond the seas. If he ca