In those dark days before King Arthur came,
When Britain was laid waste with sword and flame,
When cut-throats lurked behind the blossoming thorn,
And young maids cursed the day when they were born,
A lady, widowed in one hideous night,
Fled over heath and hill, and in her flight
Came to the magic willow-woods that stand
Beside the Murmuring Mere, in Fairyland;
And there, untimely, by the forest-side,
Clasping her infant in her arms, she died. 
Yet not all friendless,—­for such mortal throes
Pass not unpitied, though no mortal knows;—­
The spirits that infest the clearer air
Looked down upon the innocent lady there,
While troops of fairies smoothed her mossy bed
And with sweet balsam pillowed her fair head. 
Her dim eyes could not see them, but she guessed
Whose gentle ministrations thus had blessed
Her travail; and when pitying fairies laid
Upon her heart the child,—­a blue-eyed maid,—­
Ere yet her troubled spirit might depart,
With one last word she named her “Elfinhart.”

So with new-quickened love the fairy elves
Took the forlorn child-maiden to themselves
And reared her in the wildwood, where no jar
Of alien discord, echoing from afar,
Broke the sweet forest murmur, long years round. 
Her ears, attuned to every woodland sound,
Translated to her soul the great world’s voice,
And the world-spirit made her heart rejoice. 
And love was hers,—­perennial, intense,—­
The love that wells from joy and innocence
And sanctifies the cloistered heart of youth,—­
The love of love, of beauty, and of truth.

So Elfinhart grew up.  Each passing year
Of forest life beside the Murmuring Mere
Enriched tenfold the natural dower of grace
That shone from the pure spirit in her face. 
I cannot tell why each revolving season
Enhanced her beauty thus.  Some say the reason
Was in the stars; I think those luminaries
Had less to do with it than had the fairies! 
The more they found of grace in her, the more
Their silent influence added to her store;
For they were always with her; they and she
Still bore each other loving company.

And yet one further virtue,—­not the least
Of those that make life lovable,—­increased
In Elfinhart’s sweet nature from her birth
By fairy tutelage; and that was mirth. 
For fairy natures are compounded all
Of whimsies and of freaks fantastical,
And what the best of fairies loves the best
(Except pure kindness) is an artless jest. 
And so wise men have argued, on the whole,
That the misguided creatures have no soul;
But as for me, if the bright fairy elf
Has none, I’ll get along without, myself! 
These fairies laughed and danced and sang sweet songs,
And did all else that to their craft belongs,—­
All tricks and pranks of whole-souled jollity
That make life merry ’neath the greenwood tree.