One night, when the moon shone fair on the main,
Choice spirits were gathered from meadow and plain--
And lightly embarking from Erin's bold cliffs,
They slid o'er the wave in their moonbeam skiffs.
A ray for a rudder--a thought for a sail--
Swift, swift was each bark as the wing of the gale.
[Illustration: Voyage of the Fairies]
Yet long were the tale,
Should I linger to say
What gambol and frolic
Enlivened the way;
How they flirted with bubbles
That danced on the wave,
Or listened to mermaids
That sang from the cave;
Or slid with the moonbeams
Down deep to the grove
Of coral, where mullet
And goldfish rove:
How there, in long vistas
Of silence and sleep,
They waltzed, as if mocking
The death of the deep:
How, oft, where the wreck
Lay scattered and torn,
They peeped in the skull,
All ghastly and lorn;
Or deep, 'mid wild rocks,
Quizzed the goggling shark,
And mouthed at the sea-wolf,
So solemn and stark;
Each seeming to think
That the earth and the sea
Were made but for fairies,
For gambol and glee!