Who has led me a dance by dell and dingle My human soul to win, Made me a changeling to my own, own mother, A stranger to my kin. THE ENCHANTED HILL From height of noon, remote and still, The sun shines on the empty hill. No mist, no wind, above, below; No living thing strays to and fro. No bird replies to bird on high, Cleaving the skies with echoing cry. Like dreaming water, green and wan, Glassing the snow of mantling swan, Like a clear jewel encharactered With secret symbol of line and word, Asheen, unruffled, slumbrous, still, The sunlight streams on the empty hill. But soon as Night's dark shadows ride Across its shrouded Eastern side, When at her kindling, clear and full, Star beyond star stands visible; Then course pale phantoms, fleet-foot deer Lap of its waters icy-clear; Mounts the large moon, and pours her beams On bright-fish-flashing, singing streams; Voices re-echo; coursing by, Horsemen, like clouds, wheel silently. Glide then from out their pitch-black lair Beneath the dark's ensilvered arch, Witches becowled into the air; And iron pine and emerald larch, Tents of delight for ravished bird, Are by loud music thrilled and stirred. Winging the light, with silver feet, Beneath their bowers of fragrance met, In dells of rose and meadowsweet, In mazed dance the fairies flit; While drives his share the Ploughman high Athwart the daisy-powdered sky: Till far away, in thickening dew, Piercing the Eastern shadows through Rilling in crystal clear and still, Light 'gins to tremble on the hill. And like a mist on faint winds borne, Silent, forlorn, wells up the morn. Then the broad sun with burning beams Steeps slope and peak and gilded streams. Then no foot stirs; the brake shakes not; Soundless and wet in its green grot As if asleep, the leaf hangs limp; The white dews drip untrembling down, From bough to bough, orblike, unblown; And in strange quiet, shimmering and still, Morning enshrines the empty hill. [Illustration] THE RIDE-BY-NIGHTS [Illustration] Up on their brooms the Witches stream, Crooked and black in the crescent's gleam; One foot high, and one foot low, Bearded, cloaked, and cowled, they go. 'Neath Charlie's Wane they twitter and tweet, And away they swarm 'neath the Dragon's feet. With a whoop and a flutter they swing and sway, And surge pell-mell down the Milky Way. Betwixt the legs of the glittering Chair They hover and squeak in the empty air. Then round they swoop past the glimmering Lion To where Sirius barks behind huge Orion; Up, then, and over to wheel amain, Under the silver, and home again. OFF THE GROUND