Collected Poems Volume II Part 44

How blows the wind from fairyland, t.i.tania?

t.i.tANIA

Shadow-of-a-Leaf, the wicked queen has heard Your master's plan for saving poor Will Scarlet.

She knows Maid Marian will be left alone, Unguarded in these woods. The wicked Prince Will steal upon her loneliness. He plots To carry her away.

SHADOW-OF-A-LEAF

What can we do?

Can I not break my fairy vows and tell?

t.i.tANIA

No, no; you cannot, even if you would, Convey our fairy lore to mortal ears.

When have they heard our honeysuckle bugles Blowing reveille to the crimson dawn?

We can but speak by dreams; and, if you spoke, They'd whip you, for your words would all ring false Like sweet bells out of tune.

SHADOW-OF-A-LEAF

What can we do?

t.i.tANIA

Nothing, except on pain of death, to stay The course of Time and Tide. There's Oberon!

SHADOW-OF-A-LEAF

Oberon!

t.i.tANIA

He can tell you more than I.

[_Enter OBERON._]

OBERON

Where's Orchis? Where's our fairy trumpeter To call the court together?

ORCHIS

Here, my liege.

OBERON

Bugle them hither; let thy red cheeks puff Until thy curled petallic trumpet thrill More loudly than a yellow-banded bee Thro' all the clover clumps and boughs of thyme.

They are scattered far abroad.

ORCHIS

My liege, it shall Outroar the very wasp!

[_Exit._]

OBERON

[_As he speaks, the fairies come flocking from all sides into the glade._]

Methinks they grow Too fond of feasting. As I pa.s.sed this way I saw the fairy halls of hollowed oaks All lighted with their pale green glow-worm lamps.

And under great festoons of maiden-hair Their brilliant mushroom tables groaned with food.

Hundreds of rose-winged fairies banqueted!

All Sherwood glittered with their prismy goblets Br.i.m.m.i.n.g 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 cl.u.s.ter 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