They bore her far to a mountain green, To see what mortal never had seen; And they seated her high on a purple sward, And bade her heed what she saw and heard, And note the changes the spirits wrought; For now she lived in the land of thought.— She looked, and she saw nor sun nor skies, But a crystal dome of a thousand dies; She looked, and she saw nae land aright, But an endless whirl of glory and light; And radiant beings went and came, Far swifter than wind, or the linked flame; She hid her een frae the dazzling view; She looked again, and the scene was new.

She saw a sun on a summer sky,
And clouds of amber sailing by;
A lovely land beneath her lay,

And that land had glens and mountains gray;
And that land had valleys and hoary piles,
And marled seas, and a thousand isles;
Its fields were speckled, its forests green,
And its lakes were all of the dazzling sheen,
Like magic mirrors, where slumbering lay
The sun and the sky and the cloudlet gray,
Which heaved and trembled, and gently

swung;

On every shore they seemed to be hung;
For there they were seen on their downward
plain

A thousand times and a thousand again;
In winding lake and placid firth-
Little peaceful heavens in the bosom

earth.

Kilmeny sighed and seemed to grieve, For she found her heart to that land cleave;

And a leifu' maiden stood at her knee, With a silver wand and melting eeHer sovereign shield, till Love stole in, And poisoned all the fount within.

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did

She saw the corn wave on the vale;
She saw the deer run down the dale;
She saw the plaid and the broad claymore,
And the brows that the badge of freedom

bore;

And she thought she had seen the land before.

She saw a lady sit on a throne,

The fairest that ever the sun shone on!
A lion licked her hand of milk,
And she held him in a leish of silk,

She looked again, and the scene was new.

She saw below her, fair unfurled,
One half of all the glowing world,
Where oceans rolled and rivers ran,
To bound the aims of sinful man.

She saw a people fierce and fell,
Burst frae their bounds like fiends of hell;
There lilies grew, and the eagle flew;
And she herked on her ravening crew,
Till the cities and towers were wrapt in a

blaze,

And the thunder it roared o'er the lands and

the seas.

The widows they wailed, and the red blood ran,

And she threatened an end to the race of

man

She never lened, nor stood in awe,
Till caught by the lion's deadly paw.
Oh! then the eagle swinked for life,
And brainzelled up a mortal strife;
But flew she north, or flew she south,
She met wi' the growl of the lion's mouth.

With a mooted wing and waefu' maen, The eagle sought her eiry again; But lang may she cower in her bloody nest, And lang, lang sleek her wounded breast, Before she sey another flight,

To play wi' the norland lion's might.

But to sing the sights Kilmeny saw,
So far surpassing Nature's law,
The singer's voice wad sink away,
And the string of his harp wad cease to play.
But she saw till the sorrows of man were by,
And all was love and harmony;

Till the stars of heaven fell calmly away,
Like the flakes of snaw on a winter's day.

Then Kilmeny begged again to see The friends she had left in her own countrye, To tell of the place where she had been, And the glories that lay in the land unseen; To warn the living maidens fair, The loved of Heaven, the spirits' care, That all whose minds unmeled remain Shall bloom in beauty when Time is gane.

With distant music, soft and deep,
They lulled Kilmeny sound asleep;
And when she awakened, she lay her lane,
All happed with flowers in the green-wood
wene.

When seven long years had come and fled;
When grief was calm, and hope was dead;
When scarce
was remembered Kilmeny's

name,

And her voice like the distant melodye
That floats along the twilight sea.
But she loved to raike the lanely glen,
And keeped afar frae the haunts of men;
Her holy hymns unheard to sing,
To suck the flowers and drink the spring.
But wherever her peaceful form appeared,
The wild beasts of the hills were cheered;
The wolf played blythely round the field,
The lordly byson lowed and kneeled;
The dun deer wooed with manner bland,
And cowered aneath her lily hand.
And when at even the woodlands rung,
When hymns of other worlds she sung
In ecstasy of sweet devotion,

O, then the glen was all in motion!
The wild beasts of the forest came,

Broke from their bughts and faulds the tame,
And goved around, charmed and amazed;
Even the dull cattle crooned and gazed,
And murmured and looked with anxious pain,
For something the mystery to explain.
The buzzard came with the throstle-cock,
The corby left her houf in the rock;
The hind came tripping o'er the dew;
The black-bird alang wi' the eagle flew;
The wolf and the kid their raike began;
And the tod, and the lamb, and the leveret

ran;

The hawk and the hern attour them hung, And the merl and the mavis forhooyed their

young;

And all in a peaceful ring were hurled: It was like an eve in a sinless world!

When a month and day had come and gane,

Kilmeny sought the green-wood wene; There laid her down on the leaves sae green, And Kilmeny on earth was never mair seen. But O, the words that fell from her mouth,

.

"But, coming down from the hill-top,

I heard afar below,

How busy the jolly miller was,

And how the wheel did go.

"And I peeped into the widow's field,

And, sure enough, were seen
The yellow ears of the mildewed corn,
All standing stout and green.

"And down by the weaver's croft I stole,
To see if the flax were sprung;
And I met the weaver at his gate,
With the good news on his tongue.

"Now this is all I heard, mother,

And all that I did see;
So, pr'ythee, make my bed, mother,
For I'm tired as I can be."

MARY HOWITT.

'Tis the middle watch of a Summer's nightThe earth is dark, but the heavens are bright; Nought is seen in the vault on high

But the moon, and the stars, and the cloudless sky,

And the flood which rolls its milky hue,

A river of light on the welkin blue.
The moon looks down on old Cronest;
She mellows the shades on his shaggy breast,
And seems his huge gray form to throw
In a silver cone on the wave below;
His sides are broken by spots of shade,

HEADS?

O! WHERE do fairies hide their heads,
When snow lies on the hills-
When frost has spoiled their mossy beds,
And crystallized their rills?
Beneath the moon they cannot trip

In circles o'er the plain;

And draughts of dew they cannot sip,
Till green leaves come again.

Perhaps, in small, blue diving-bells,
They plunge beneath the waves,
Inhabiting the wreathed shells
That lie in coral caves.
Perhaps, in red Vesuvius,

Carousals they maintain;
And cheer their little spirits thus,

Till green leaves come again.

When they return there will be mirth,
And music in the air,

And fairy wings upon the earth,
And mischief every where.
The maids, to keep the elves aloof,
Will bar the doors in vain;
No key-hole will be fairy-proof,
When green leaves come again.

THOMAS HAYNES BAYLY.

And through their clustering branches dark Glimmers and dies the fire-fly's spark— Like starry twinkles that momently break Through the rifts of the gathering tempest's rack.

II.

The stars are on the moving stream,
And fling, as its ripples gently flow,
A burnished length of wavy beam

In an eel-like, spiral line below;
The winds are whist, and the owl is still;
The bat in the shelvy rock is hid;
And nought is heard on the lonely hill
But the cricket's chirp, and the answer shrill

Of the gauze-winged katy-did;

And the plaint of the wailing whip-poor-will, Who moans unseen, and ceaseless sings, Ever a note of wail and woe,

Till Morning spreads her rosy wings, And earth and sky in her glances glow.

III.

'Tis the hour of fairy ban and spell:
The wood-tick has kept the minutes well;
He has counted them all with click and stroke
Deep in the heart of the mountain-oak,
And he has awakened the sentry elve

Who sleeps with him in the haunted tree,

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To bid him ring the hour of twelve, And call the fays to their revelry; Twelve small strokes on his tinkling bell('Twas made of the white snail's pearly shell-)

"Midnight comes, and all is well!

Hither, hither, wing your way!

'Tis the dawn of the fairy-day."

IV.

They come from beds of lichen green,
They creep from the mullen's velvet screen;
Some on the backs of beetles fly

From the silver tops of moon-touched trees, Where they swung in their cobweb hammocks high,

And rocked about in the evening breeze;

Some from the hum-bird's downy nestThey had driven him out by elfin power,

And, pillowed on plumes of his rainbow breast,

Had slumbered there till the charmed hour; Some had lain in the scoop of the rock, With glittering ising-stars inlaid;

And some had opened the four-o'clock, And stole within its purple shade.

And now they throng the moonlight glade, Above-below-on every side,

Their little minim forms arrayed In the tricksy pomp of fairy pride!

V.

They come not now to print the lea,
In freak and dance around the tree,
Or at the mushroom board to sup,
And drink the dew from the buttercup;-
A scene of sorrow waits them now,
For an ouphe has broken his vestal vow;
He has loved an earthly maid,
And left for her his woodland shade;
He has lain upon her lip of dew,
And sunned him in her eye of blue,
Fanned her cheek with his wing of air,
Played in the ringlets of her hair,
And, nestling on her snowy breast,
Forgot the lily-king's behest.
For this the shadowy tribes of air
To the elfin court must haste away:-
And now they stand expectant there,

To hear the doom of the culprit fay.

VI.

The throne was reared upon the grass,
Of spice-wood and of sassafras;
On pillars of mottled tortoise-shell
Hung the burnished canopy-
And o'er it gorgeous curtains fell
Of the tulip's crimson drapery.
The monarch sat on his judgment-seat,
On his brow the crown imperial shone,
The prisoner fay was at his feet,

And his peers were ranged around the throne.

He waved his sceptre in the air,

He looked around and calmly spoke; His brow was grave and his eye severe, But his voice in a softened accent broke:

VII.

"Fairy! Fairy! list and mark:

Thou hast broke thine elfin chain; Thy flame - wood lamp is quenched and dark,

And thy wings are dyed with a deadly stain

Thou hast sullied thine elfin purity

In the glance of a mortal maiden's eye; Thou hast scorned our dread decree,

And thou shouldst pay the forfeit high.
But well I know her sinless mind

Is pure as the angel forms above,
Gentle and meek, and chaste and kind,
Such as a spirit well might love;
Fairy! had she spot or taint,
Bitter had been thy punishment:
Tied to the hornet's shardy wings;
Tossed on the pricks of nettles' stings;
Or seven long ages doomed to dwell
With the lazy worm in the walnut-shell;
Or every night to writhe and bleed
Beneath the tread of the centipede;
Or bound in a cobweb dungeon dim,
Your jailer a spider, huge and grim,
Amid the carrion bodies to lie

Of the worm, and the bug, and the murdered fly:

These it had been your lot to bear,
Had a stain been found on the earthly fair.
Now list, and mark our mild decree-
Fairy, this your doom must be: