"Sometimes we scoop the squirrel's hollow cell, And sometimes carve quaint letters on trees' rind, That haply some lone musing wight may spell

Dainty Aminta, gentle Rosalind,—

Or chastest Laura,- sweetly called to mind
In sylvan solitudes, ere he lies down; -

And sometimes we enrich gray stems, with twined
And vagrant ivy,— or rich moss, whose brown
Burns into gold as the warm sun goes down.

"And, lastly, for mirth's sake and Christmas cheer, We bear the seedling berries, for increase,

To graft the Druid oaks, from year to year,
Careful that mistletoe
never cease;
may
Wherefore, if thou dost prize the shady peace
Of sombre forests, or to see light break
Through sylvan cloisters, and in spring release
Thy spirit amongst leaves from careful ake,
Spare us our lives for the Green Dryad's sake."

Then Saturn, with a frown: "Go forth, and fell
Oak for your coffins, and thenceforth lay by
Your axes for the rust, and bid farewell
To all sweet birds, and the blue peeps of sky
Through tangled branches, for ye shall not spy
The next green generation of the tree;

But hence with the dead leaves, whene'er they fly,-
Which in the bleak air I would rather see,

Than flights of the most tuneful birds that be.

"For I dislike all prime, and verdant pets, Ivy except, that on the aged wall

Preys with its worm-like roots, and daily frets

The crumbled tower it seems to league withal,

King-like, worn down by its own coronal:
Neither in forest haunts love I to won,

Before the golden plumage 'gins to fall,

And leaves the brown bleak limbs with few leaves on,

Or bare like Nature in her skeleton.

"For then sit I amongst the crooked boughs,
Wooing dull Memory with kindred sighs;
And there in rustling nuptials we espouse,
Smit by the sadness in each other's eyes;
But Hope must have green bowers and blue skies,
And must be courted with the gauds of spring;
Whilst Youth leans godlike on her lap, and cries,
What shall we always do, but love and sing? -
And Time is reckoned a discarded thing."

Here in my dream it made me fret to see
How Puck, the antic, all this dreary while
Had blithely jested with calamity,

With mistimed mirth mocking the doleful style
Of his sad comrades, till it raised my bile
To see him so reflect their grief aside,
Turning their solemn looks to half a smile-
Like a straight stick shown crooked in the tide; -
But soon a novel advocate I spied.

Quoth he, "We teach all natures to fulfil
Their fore-appointed crafts, and instincts meet,-
The bee's sweet alchemy, the spider's skill,-
The pismire's care to garner up his wheat,-
And rustic masonry to swallows fleet,-
The lapwing's cunning to preserve her nest,--
But most that lesser pelican, the sweet
And shrilly ruddock, with its bleeding breast,
Its tender pity of poor babes distrest.

"Sometimes we cast our shapes, and in sleek skins
Delve with the timid mole, that aptly delves
From our example; so the spider spins,
And eke the silk-worm, patterned by ourselves:
Sometimes we travail on the summer shelves
Of early bees, and busy toils commence,

Watched of wise men, that know not we are elves,
But and marvel at our stretch of sense
gaze

And praise our human-like intelligence.

"Wherefore, by thy delight in that old tale,
And plaintive dirges the late robins sing,
What time the leaves are scattered by the gale,
Mindful of that old forest burying;
As thou dost love to watch each tiny thing,
For whom our craft most curiously contrives,
If thou hast caught a bee upon the wing,
To take his honey-bag,- spare us our lives,
And we will pay the ransom in full hives."

"Now by my glass," quoth Time, "ye do offend
In teaching the brown bees that careful lore,
And frugal ants, whose millions would have end,
But they lay up for need a timely store,
And travail with the seasons evermore ;
Whereas Great Mammoth long hath passed away,
And none but I can tell what hide he wore;
Whilst purblind men, the creatures of a day,
In riddling wonder his great bones survey."

Then came an elf, right beauteous to behold,
Whose coat was like a brooklet that the sun
Hath all embroidered with its crooked gold
It was so quaintly wrought and overrun

With spangled traceries,

most meet for one

That was a warden of the pearly streams;

And as he stept out of the shadows dun,
His jewels sparkled in the pale moon's gleams,
And shot into the air their pointed beams.

Quoth he, "We bear the gold and silver keys
Of bubbling springs and fountains, that below

Course through the veiny earth, which, when they freeze
Into hard crysolites, we bid to flow,

Creeping like subtle snakes, when, as they go,
We guide their windings to melodious falls,
At whose soft murmurings so sweet and low
Poets have turned their smoothest madrigals,
To sing to ladies in their banquet-halls.

"And when the hot sun with his steadfast heat
Parches the river god, whose dusty urn
Drips miserly, till soon his crystal feet
Against his pebbly floor wax faint and burn,
And languid fish, unpoised, grow sick and yearn,-
Then scoop we hollows in some sandy nook,
And little channels dig, wherein we turn
The thread-worn rivulet, that all forsook
The Naiad-lily, pining for her brook.

"Wherefore, by thy delight in cool green meads,
With living sapphires daintily inlaid,—
In all soft songs of waters and their reeds,-
And all reflections in a streamlet made,
Haply of thy own love, that, disarrayed,
Kills the fair lily with a livelier white,-
By silver trouts upspringing from green shade,
And winking stars reduplicate at night,
Spare us, poor ministers to such delight."

Howbeit his pleading and his gentle looks

Moved not the spiteful Shade: - Quoth he, "Your taste
Shoots wide of mine, for I despise the brooks
And slavish rivulets that run to waste

In noontide sweats, or, like poor vassals, haste
To swell the vast dominion of the sea,
In whose great presence I am held disgraced,
And neighbored with a king that rivals me
In ancient might and hoary majesty.

"Whereas I ruled in chaos, and still keep
The awful secrets of that ancient dearth,
Before the briny fountains of the deep
Brimmed up the hollow cavities of earth;
I saw each trickling Sea-God at his birth,
Each pearly Naiad with her oozy locks,
And infant Titans of enormous girth,
Whose huge young feet yet stumbled on the rocks
Stunning the early world with frequent shocks.

"Where now is Titan, with his cumbrous brood,
That scared the world?- By this sharp scythe they fell,
And half the sky was curdled with their blood:
So have all primal giants sighed farewell.
No Wardens now by sedgy fountains dwell,
Nor pearly Naiads. All their days are done
That strove with Time, untimely, to excel;
Wherefore I razed their progenies, and none
But my great shadow intercepts the sun!"

Then saith the timid Fay, "O, mighty Time!
Well hast thou wrought the cruel Titans' fall,
For they were stained with many a bloody crime :
Great giants work great wrongs, but we are small,