The stars are on the moving stream, And fling, as its ripples gently flow, A burnish’d length of wavy beam, In an eel-like, spiral line below. The winds are whist, and the owl is still, The bat in the shelvy rock is hid; And nought is heard on the lonely hill But the cricket’s chirp and the answer shrill Of the gauze-wing’d raty-did; And the plaints of the mourning whip-poor-will, Who mourns unseen, and ceaseless sings Ever a note of wail and wo, Till morning spreads her rosy wings, And earth and skies in her glances glow. ’Tis the hour of fairy ban and spell: The wood-tick has kept the minutes well; He has counted them all with click and stroke Deep in the heart of the mountain-oak; And he has awakened the sentry-elve, Who sleeps with him in the haunted tree, To bid him ring the hour of twelve, And call the fays to their revelry. * * * * * * * * * * They come from beds of lichen green, They creep from the mullen’s velvet screen; Some on the backs of beetles fly From the silver tops of moon-touch’d trees, Where they swing in their cob-web hammocks high, And rock’d about in the evening breeze; Some from the hum-bird’s downy nest, They had driven him out by elfin power, And pillow’d on plumes of his rainbow breast, Had slumber’d there till the charmed hour; Some had lain in a scarp of the rock, With glittering rising-stars inlaid, And some had open’d the four-o’clock, And stolen within its purple shade: And now they throng the moonlight glade, Above—below—on every side, Their little minion forms arrayed In the tricksy pomp of fairy pride.’ The general assembly of the fairies is at last complete, and they proceed to the trial of the culprit fay, who has extinguished his elfin lamp and paralyzed his wings by a love for a mortal maid. He is condemned to penances, which are most exquisitely described, and constitute the greater part of the poem; and he finally expiates his sins, and is forgiven. There is a fineness of description, and a knowledge of the peculiarities of American nature, in birds, fishes, flowers, and the phenomena of this particular region, which constitute this little poem a book of valuable information as well as an exquisite work of fancy.