Never roving pirates back from Southern seas Brought a store of treasures home beautiful as these. They heaped them all about him in a sweet gay pile, But still he kept a-stitching and a-singing all the while: “Grey for the goblins, blue for the elves, Brown for the little gnomes that live by themselves, White for the pixies that dance on the green, But who shall make a royal gown to deck the Fairy Queen?” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ AT DAWN Though the fairies meet by night In the moonlit spaces, Often in the morning light You will see their traces; If you rise at early dawn When the birds are waking, You may find upon the lawn Tents of fairy making. In the meadows here and there, Where the soft wind passes, Elfin lines of gossamer Stretch between the grasses; And if you will look about Soon you will discover Fairy washing hanging out All among the clover. In the quiet woods you might, If your ways be wary, Even hope to get a sight Of a little fairy On a lily-leaf, perchance, Broad and smooth and level, Practising her tiny dance For the evening revel. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THE GREEN LOCH Far in the hills the Green Loch lies, Its constant emerald mocks at the skies; Though they be garmented grey or blue Never the Green Loch changes hue; For at earliest dawn, when the winds are still, Over the brow of the western hill The fairies come in a happy throng With elfin laughter and elfin song Trooping down to the water-side To bathe in its cool enchanted tide. Over and under they flash about, They race with the shy little silver trout, They twist and tumble and dart and dive Till all the lake is alight and alive, And glows with a tremulous sparkling sheen Like the jewelled robe of an Eastern queen.