Fairies

 

   
THE FAIRIES   
    
UP the airy mountain,   
Down the rushy glen,   
We daren’t go a-hunting   
For fear of little men;   
Wee folk, good folk,   
Trooping all together;   
Green jacket, red cap,   
And white owl’s feather!   
     
Down along the rocky shore   
Some make their home,   
They live on crispy pancakes   
Of yellow tide-foam;   
Some in the reeds   
Of the black mountain lake,   
With frogs for their watch-dogs,   
All night awake.   
     
High on the hill-top   
The old King sits;   
He is now so old and gray   
He’s nigh lost his wits.   
With a bridge of white mist   
Columbkill he crosses,   
On his stately journeys   
From Slieveleague to Rosses;   
Or going up with music   
On cold starry nights   
To sup with the Queen   
Of the gay Northern Lights.   
     
They stole little Bridget   
For seven years long;   
When she came down again   
Her friends were all gone.   
They took her lightly back,   
Between the night and morrow,   
They thought that she was fast asleep,   
But she was dead with sorrow.   
They have kept her ever since   
Deep within the lake,   
On a bed of flag-leaves,   
Watching till she wake.   
     
By the craggy hill-side,   
Through the mosses bare,   
They have planted thorn-trees   
For pleasure here and there.   
If any man so daring   
As dig them up in spite,   
He shall find their sharpest thorns   
In his bed at night.   
     
Up the airy mountain,   
Down the rushy glen,   
We daren’t go a-hunting   
For fear of little men;   
Wee folk, good folk,   
Trooping all together;   
Green jacket, red cap,   
And white owl’s feather!   
     
William Allingham (1824-1889)   

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