Methinks they grow Too fond of feasting. As I passed this way I saw the fairy halls of hollowed oaks All lighted with their pale green glow-worm lamps. And under great festoons of maiden-hair Their brilliant mushroom tables groaned with food. Hundreds of rose-winged fairies banqueted! All Sherwood glittered with their prismy goblets Brimming the thrice refined and luscious dew Not only of our own most purplest violets, But of strange fragrance, wild exotic nectars, Drawn from the fairy blossoms of some star Beyond our tree-tops! Ay, beyond that moon Which is our natural limit--the big lamp Heaven lights upon our boundary. ORCHIS Mighty King, The Court is all attendant on thy word. OBERON [_With great dignity._] Elves, pixies, nixies, gnomes and leprechauns, [_He pauses._] We are met, this moonlight, for momentous councils Concerning those two drowsy human lovers, Maid Marian and her outlawed Robin Hood. They are in dire peril; yet we may not break Our vows of silence. Many a time Has Robin Hood by kindly words and deeds Done in his human world, sent a new breath Of life and joy like Spring to fairyland; And at the moth-hour of this very dew-fall, He saved a fairy, whom he thought, poor soul, Only a may-fly in a spider's web, He saved her from the clutches of that Wizard, That Cruel Thing, that dark old Mystery, Whom ye all know and shrink from-- [_Exclamations of horror from the fairies._] Plucked her forth, So gently that not one bright rainbow gleam Upon her wings was clouded, not one flake Of bloom brushed off--there lies the broken web. Go, look at it; and here is pale Perilla To tell you all the tale. [_The fairies cluster to look at the web, etc._] A FAIRY Can we not make them free Of fairyland, like Shadow-of-a-Leaf, to come And go, at will, upon the wings of dreams? OBERON Not till they lose their wits like Shadow-of-a-Leaf. SHADOW-OF-A-LEAF Can I not break my fairy vows and tell? OBERON Only on pain of what we fairies call Death! SHADOW-OF-A-LEAF Death? OBERON Never to join our happy revels, Never to pass the gates of fairyland Again, but die like mortals. What that means We do not know--who knows? SHADOW-OF-A-LEAF If I could save them!-- I am only Shadow-of-a-Leaf! OBERON There is a King Beyond the seas. If he came home in time, All might be well. We fairies only catch Stray gleams, wandering shadows of things to come. TITANIA Oh, if the King came home from the Crusade! SHADOW-OF-A-LEAF