BLUEBELLS

Where the bluebells and the wind are,
    Fairies in a ring I spied,
And I heard a little linnet
    Singing near beside.

Where the primrose and the dew are—­
    Soon were sped the fairies all: 
Only now the green turf freshens,
    And the linnets call.

LOVELOCKS

I watched the Lady Caroline
Bind up her dark and beauteous hair;
Her face was rosy in the glass,
And ’twixt the coils her hands would pass,
    White in the candleshine.

Her bottles on the table lay,
Stoppered, yet sweet of violet;
Her image in the mirror stooped
To view those locks as lightly looped
    As cherry boughs in May.

The snowy night lay dim without,
I heard the Waits their sweet song sing;
The window smouldered keen with frost;
Yet still she twisted, sleeked and tossed
    Her beauteous hair about.

TARTARY

If I were Lord of Tartary,
  Myself and me alone,
My bed should be of ivory,
  Of beaten gold my throne;
And in my court would peacocks flaunt,
And in my forests tigers haunt,
And in my pools great fishes slant
  Their fins athwart the sun.

If I were Lord of Tartary,
  Trumpeters every day
To every meal should summon me,
  And in my courtyard bray;
And in the evening lamps would shine,
Yellow as honey, red as wine,
While harp, and flute, and mandoline,
  Made music sweet and gay.

If I were Lord of Tartary,
  I’d wear a robe of beads,
White, and gold, and green they’d be—­
  And clustered thick as seeds;
And ere should wane the morning-star,
I’d don my robe and scimitar,
And zebras seven should draw my car
  Through Tartary’s dark glades.

Lord of the fruits of Tartary,
  Her rivers silver-pale! 
Lord of the hills of Tartary,
  Glen, thicket, wood, and dale! 
Her flashing stars, her scented breeze,
Her trembling lakes, like foamless seas,
Her bird-delighting citron-trees
  In every purple vale!

THE BUCKLE

I had a silver buckle,
  I sewed it on my shoe,
And ’neath a sprig of mistletoe
  I danced the evening through.

I had a bunch of cowslips,
  I hid them in a grot,
In case the elves should come by night
  And me remember not.

I had a yellow riband,
  I tied it in my hair,
That, walking in the garden,
  The birds might see it there.

I had a secret laughter,
  I laughed it near the wall: 
Only the ivy and the wind
  May tell of it at all.

THE HARE

In the black furrow of a field
  I saw an old witch-hare this night;
And she cocked a lissome ear,
  And she eyed the moon so bright,
And she nibbled of the green;
  And I whispered “Wh-s-st! witch-hare,”
Away like a ghostie o’er the field
  She fled, and left the moonlight there.