A. TOR, LENOX

N FOUNDATION

The old carbuncle lit the dome,

Where I was made a king;

The crown was wrought of pale sea-gold, So was my fairy ring.

And she who on my right hand sate

As the morning star was fair;

She was clothed in a robe of shadowy light, And veiled by her golden hair.

They made me king of the Fairy Isles,
That lie in the golden mist,

Where the coral rocks and the silvery sand
By singing waves are kissed.

Far off, in the ocean solitudes,
They lie, a glorious seven;

Like a beautiful group of sister stars,
In the untraced heights of heaven:

For the mariner sails them round about,
But he comes them not anigh;

They are hid far off, in a secret place
Of the sea's immensity.

Oh, beautiful isles! where comes no death, Where no winter enters in,

Where the fairy race, like the lily flowers,

Do neither toil nor spin!

Oh, beautiful isles! where the coral rocks Like the ancient temple stand,

Like a temple of wondrous workmanship For a lofty worship planned!

The heights of heaven they roof it in,

O'er-spanned like an azure bow;

And its floor is the living waves of light,
That cover the depths below;

The unsunned depths of the ancient sea,
Where the fairy kings of old
Stored up, in emerald caverns vast,
Their treasure-hoards and gold.

Oh, beautiful isles! When the waning moon
Sinks down from the vales of earth,

She rises up on those fairy seas,

And gives their daylight birth.

There comes no cloud to dim her ray,
She shines forth pure and bright;
The silver moon she shines by day,
The golden mist by night.

Oh, beautiful isles! And a fairy race,
As the dream of a poet, fair,

Now hold the place by a charméd spell,

With power o'er sea and air.

Their boats are made of the large pearl-shell
That the waters cast to land;

With carved prows more richly wrought
Than works of mortal hand.

They skim along the silver waves
Without or sail or oar;

Whenever the fairy voyager would,

The pearl ship comes to shore.

1

They taught me the song which is their speech,
A tone of love divine;

They set me down to their banquet board,
And poured out fairy wine.

The wine of the old sea-vintage, red,
That was made long years ago,

More rich than the blood in kingly veins,
Yet pure and cool as snow.

I loved that idle life for a time;
But when that time was by,
I pined again for another change,
For the love in a human eye.

They brought me then a glorious form,
And gave her for my bride;

I looked on her, and straight forgot
That I was to earth allied.

I snatched the crown they offered me;
I forgot what I had been;

I snatched the crown to be a king,
That she might be a queen.

For many a year and more, I dwelt
In those isles of soft delight;
Where all was kind and beautiful,
With neither death nor night.

We danced on the sands when the silver moon
Through the coral arches gleamed,

And pathways broad of glittering light

O'er the azure waters streamed.

Then forth shot many a pearly boat,

Like stars, across the sea;

And songs were sung, and shells were blown
That set wild music free.

IV

THE KELPIE OF CORRIEVRECKAN

Charles Mackay

I

E mounted his steed of the water clear,

And sat on his saddle of sea-weed sere;

He held his bridle of strings of pearl,

Dug out of the depths where the sea-snakes curl.

II

He put on his vest of the whirlpool froth,

Soft and dainty as velvet cloth,

And donn'd his mantle of sand so white,

And grasp'd his sword of the coral bright.

III

And away he gallop'd, a horseman free,
Spurring his steed through the stormy sea,
Clearing the billows with bound and leap-
Away, away, o'er the foaming deep!