ON FAIRIES.
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"fairie elves,Whose midnight revels, by a forest sideOr fountain, some belated peasant sees,Or dreams he sees, while over-head the moon,Sits arbitress, and neerer to the earthWheels her pale course, they, on thir mirth and danceIntent, with jocond music charm his ear;At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds."[1]
The impression they had made upon his imagination in early life appears from his "Vacation exercise," at the age of nineteen:
"Good luck befriend thee, son; for, at thy birth,The faiery ladies daunc't upon the hearth;The drowsie nurse hath sworn she did them spie,Come tripping to the room where thou didst lie;.And sweetly singing round about thy bed,Strew all their blessings on thy sleeping head."
L'abbé Bourdelon, in his "Ridiculous extravagances of M. Oufle," describes "The fairies, of which," he says, " grandmothers and nurses tell so many tales to children; these fairies," adds he, "I mean, who are affirmed to be blind at home, and very clear-sighted abroad; who dance in the moonshine, when they have nothing else to do; who steal shepherds and children, to carry them up to their caves, &c."[2]
- ↑ Paradise lost, B. 1.
- ↑ English translation, p. 190. He cites, in a note, that
