70. The Others

FROM our hidden places

By a secret path,

We come in the moonlight

To the side of the green rath.

There the night through

We take our pleasure,

Dancing to such a measure

As earth never knew.

To song and dance

And lilt without a name,

So sweetly breathed

’Twould put a bird to shame.

And many a young maiden

Is there, of mortal birth,

Her young eyes laden

With dreams of earth.

And many a youth entranced

Moves slowly in the wildered round,

His brave lost feet enchanted,

With the rhythm of faery sound.

Music so forest wild

And piercing sweet would bring

Silence on blackbirds singing

Their best in the ear of spring.

And now they pause in their dancing,

And look with troubled eyes,

Earth straying children

With sudden memory wise.

They pause, and their eyes in the moonlight

With fairy wisdom cold,

Grow dim and a thought goes fluttering

In the hearts no longer old.

And then the dream forsakes them,

And sighing, they turn anew,

As the whispering music takes them,

To the dance of the elfin crew.

O many a thrush and a blackbird

Would fall to the dewy ground,

And pine away in silence

For envy of such a sound.

So the night through

In our sad pleasure,

We dance to many a measure,

That earth never knew.