his peers were ranged around the throne.
He waved his sceptre in the air,
He looked around and calmly spoke;
His brow was grave and his eye severe,
But his voice in a softened accent broke:

"Fairy! Fairy! list and mark!
Thou halt broke thine elfin chain;
Thy flame-wood lamp is quenched and dark,
And thy wings are dyed with a deadly stain;
Thou hast sullied thine elfin purity
In the glance of a mortal maiden's eye:
Thou bast scorned our dread decree,
And thou shouldst pay the forfeit high,
But well I know her sinless mind
Is pure as the angel forms above,
Gentle and meek and chaste and kind,
Such as a spirit well might love.
Fairy! had she spot or taint,
Bitter had been thy punishment
Tied to the hornet's shardy wings,
Tossed on the pricks of nettles' stings,
Or seven long ages doomed to dwell
With the lazy worm in the walnut-shell;
Or every night to writhe and bleed
Beneath the tread of the centipede;
Or bound in a cobweb dungeon dim,
Your jailer a spider huge and grim,
Amid the carrion bodies to lie
Of the worm, and the bug and the murdered fly:
These it had been your lot to bear,
Had a stain been found on the earthly fair.
Now list and mark our mild decree
Fairy, this your doom must be:

"Thou shaft seek the beach of sand
Where the water bounds the elfin land;
Thou shaft watch the oozy brine
Till the sturgeon leaps in the bright moonshine;
Then dart the glistening arch below,
And catch a drop from his silver bow.
The water-sprites will wield their arms,
And dash around with roar and rave;
And vain are the woodland spirits' charms--
They are the imps that rule the wave.
Yet trust thee in thy single might:
If thy heart be pure and thy spirit right,
Thou shalt win the warlock fight." . . .

The goblin marked his monarch well;
He spake not, but he bowed him low;
Then plucked a crimson colen-bell,
And turned him round in act to go.
The way is long, he cannot fly,