ap, tap, tap, rap! "Get up, gaffer Ferryman,"
"Eh! Who is there?" The clock strikes three.
"Get up, do, gaffer! You are the very man
We have been long, long, longing to see."
The ferryman rises, growling and grumbling,
And goes fum-fumbling, and stumbling, and tumbling
Over the wares on his way to the door.
But he sees no more
Than he saw before;
Till a voice is heard: "O Ferryman dear!
Here we are waiting, all of us, here.
We are a wee, wee colony, we;
Some two hundred in all, or three,
Ferry us over the river Lee,
Ere dawn of day,
And we will pay
The most we may
In our own wee way!"

"Who are you? Whence came you?
What place are you going to?"
"Oh, we have dwelt over-long in this land;
The people get cross, and are growing so knowing, too!
Nothing at all but they now understand.
We are daily vanishing under the thunder
Of some huge engine or iron wonder;
That iron, ah! it has entered our souls."
"Your souls? O gholes,
You queer little drolls,
Do you mean....?" "Good gaffer, do aid us with speed,
For our time, like our stature, is short indeed!
And a very long way we have to go;
Eight or ten thousand miles or so,
Hither and thither, and to and fro,
With our pots and pans
And little gold cans;
But our light caravans
Run swifter than man's."

"Well, well, you may come," said the ferryman affably;
"Patrick, turn out, and get ready the barge."
Then again to the little folk; "Tho' you seem laughably
Small, I don't mind, if your coppers be large."
Oh, dear, what a rushing, what pushing, what crushing
(The watermen making vain efforts at hushing
The hubbub the while), there followed these words.
What clapping of boards,
What strapping of cords,
What stowing away of children and wives,
And platters and mugs, and spoons and knives,
Till all had safely got into the boat,
And the ferryman, clad in his tip-top coat,
And his wee little fairies were safely afloat!
Then ding, ding, ding,
And kling, kling, kling,
How the coppers did ring
In the tin pitcherling.

Off, then, went the boat, at first very pleasantly,
Smoothly, and so forth; but after a while
It swayed and it sagged this and that way, and presently
Chest after chest, and pile after pile,
Of the little folks' goods began tossing and rolling,
And pitching like fun, beyond fairy controlling.
O Mab! if the hubbub were great before