I saw three witches
    Asleep in a valley,
Their heads in a row, like stones in a flood,
    Till the moon, creeping upward,
    Looked white through the valley,
And turned them to bushes in bright scarlet bud.

THE SILVER PENNY

“Sailorman, I’ll give to you
  My bright silver penny,
If out to sea you’ll sail me
  And my dear sister Jenny.”

“Get in, young sir, I’ll sail ye
  And your dear sister Jenny,
But pay she shall her golden locks
  Instead of your penny.”

They sail away, they sail away,
  O fierce the winds blew! 
The foam flew in clouds,
  And dark the night grew!

And all the wild sea-water
  Climbed steep into the boat;
Back to the shore again
  Sail they will not.

Drowned is the sailorman,
  Drowned is sweet Jenny,
And drowned in the deep sea
  A bright silver penny.

THE RAINBOW

I saw the lovely arch
  Of Rainbow span the sky,
The gold sun burning
  As the rain swept by.

In bright-ringed solitude
  The showery foliage shone
One lovely moment,
  And the Bow was gone.

THE FAIRIES DANCING

I heard along the early hills,
  Ere yet the lark was risen up,
Ere yet the dawn with firelight fills
  The night-dew of the bramble-cup,—­
I heard the fairies in a ring
  Sing as they tripped a lilting round
Soft as the moon on wavering wing. 
  The starlight shook as if with sound,
As if with echoing, and the stars
  Prankt their bright eyes with trembling gleams;
While red with war the gusty Mars
  Rained upon earth his ruddy beams. 
He shone alone, low down the West,
  While I, behind a hawthorn-bush,
Watched on the fairies flaxen-tressed
  The fires of the morning flush. 
Till, as a mist, their beauty died,
  Their singing shrill and fainter grew;
And daylight tremulous and wide
  Flooded the moorland through and through;
Till Urdon’s copper weathercock
  Was reared in golden flame afar,
And dim from moonlit dreams awoke
  The towers and groves of Arroar.

REVERIE

When slim Sophia mounts her horse
  And paces down the avenue,
It seems an inward melody
      She paces to.

Each narrow hoof is lifted high
  Beneath the dark enclustering pines,
A silver ray within his bit
      And bridle shines.

His eye burns deep, his tail is arched,
  And streams upon the shadowy air,
The daylight sleeks his jetty flanks,
      His mistress’ hair.

Her habit flows in darkness down,
  Upon the stirrup rests her foot,
Her brow is lifted, as if earth
      She heeded not.

’Tis silent in the avenue,
  The sombre pines are mute of song,
The blue is dark, there moves no breeze
      The boughs among.