CHAPTER XXX. NO PART OF THE EARTH REALLY SOLITARY.--THE SONG OF THE FAIRIES.--THE SACRED SPOT.--THE WITCH OF THE EVIL WINDS.--THE SPELL AND THE DUTY OF THE FAIRIES. BUT in what spot of the world is there ever utter solitude? The vanity of man supposes that loneliness is _his_ absence! Who shall say what millions of spiritual beings glide invisibly among scenes apparently the most deserted? Or what know we of our own mechanism, that we should deny the possibility of life and motion to things that we cannot ourselves recognize? At moonlight, in the Great Court of Heidelberg, on the borders of the shattered basin overgrown with weeds, the following song was heard by the melancholy shades that roam at night through the mouldering halls of old, and the gloomy hollows in the mountain of Heidelberg. SONG OF THE FAIRIES IN THE RUINS OF HEIDELBERG. From the woods and the glossy green, With the wild thyme strewn; From the rivers whose crisped sheen Is kissed by the trembling moon; While the dwarf looks out from his mountain cave, And the erl king from his lair, And the water-nymph from her moaning wave, We skirr the limber air. There’s a smile on the vine-clad shore, A smile on the castled heights; They dream back the days of yore, And they smile at our roundel rites! Our roundel rites! Lightly we tread these halls around, Lightly tread we; Yet, hark! we have scared with a single sound The moping owl on the breathless tree, And the goblin sprites! Ha, ha! we have scared with a single sound The old gray owl on the breathless tree, And the goblin sprites! “They come not,” said Pipalee; “yet the banquet is prepared, and the poor queen will be glad of some refreshment.” “What a pity! all the rose-leaves will be over-broiled,” said Nip. “Let us amuse ourselves with the old painter,” quoth Trip, springing over the ruins. “Well said,” cried Pipalee and Nip; and all three, leaving my lord treasurer amazed at their levity, whisked into the painter’s apartment. Permitting them to throw the ink over their victim’s papers, break his pencils, mix his colours, mislay his nightcap, and go whiz against his face in the shape of a great bat, till the astonished Frenchman began to think the pensive goblins of the place had taken a sprightly fit,--we hasten to a small green spot some little way from the town, in the valley of the Neckar, and by the banks of its silver stream. It was circled round by dark trees, save on that side bordered by the river. The wild-flowers sprang profusely from the turf, which yet was smooth and singularly green. And there was the German fairy describing a circle round the spot, and making his elvish spells; and Nymphalin sat droopingly in the centre, shading her face, which was bowed down as the head of a water-lily, and weeping crystal tears.