“But virtue can itself advance To what the favourite fools of chance By fortune seem’d design’d; Virtue can gain the odds of fate, And from itself shake off the weight Upon th’ unworthy mind.” THOMAS PARNELL. THE ELFIN KING. “O swift and swifter far he speeds Than earthly steed can run; But I hear not the feet of his courser fleet, As he glides o’er the moorland dun.” Lone was the strath where he crossed their path, And wide did the heath extend, The Knight in Green on that moor is seen At every seven years’ end. And swift is the speed of his coal-black steed, As the leaf before the gale, But never yet have that courser’s feet Been heard on hill or dale. But woe to the wight who meets the Green Knight, Except on his faulchion arm Spell-proof he bear, like the brave St. Clair, The holy Trefoil’s charm; For then shall fly his gifted eye, Delusions false and dim; And each unblessed shade shall stand portrayed In ghostly form and limb. O swifter, and swifter far he speeds Than earthly steed can run; “He skims the blue air,” said the brave St. Clair, “Instead of the heath so dun. “His locks are as bright as the streamer’s light, His cheeks like the rose’s hue; The Elfin-King, like the merlin’s wing Are his pinions of glossy blue.” “No Elfin-King, with azure wing, On the dark brown moor I see; But a courser keen, and a Knight in Green, And full fair I ween is he. “Nor Elfin-King, nor azure wing, Nor ringlets sparkling bright;” Sir Geoffrey cried, and forward hied To join the stranger Knight. He knew not the path of the lonely strath, Where the Elfin-King went his round; Or he never had gone with the Green Knight on, Nor trod the charmèd ground. How swift they flew! no eye could view Their track on heath or hill; Yet swift across both moor and moss St. Clair did follow still. And soon was seen a circle green, Where a shadowy wassel crew Amid the ring did dance and sing, In weeds of watchet blue. And the windlestrae,[2] so limber and grey, Did shiver beneath the tread Of the coursers’ feet, as they rushed to meet The morrice of the dead. “Come here, come here, with thy green fere, Before the bread be stale; To roundel dance with speed advance, And taste our wassel ale.” Then up to the Knight came a grizly wight, And sounded in his ear, “Sir Knight, eschew this goblin crew, Nor taste their ghostly cheer.” The tabors rung, the lilts were sung, And the Knight the dance did lead; But the maidens fair seemed round him to stare, With eyes like the glassy bead. The glance of their eye, so cold and so dry, Did almost his heart appal; Their motion is swift, but their limbs they lift Like stony statues all.