The Fairy Mass
TO N ESTA: WHO HEARD THE Bells IN C AERA W OOD .
The year is come to its golden moon
And old Midsummer night:
The watchfires will be lighted soon
On Caera's purple height,
To cast on the birchwood below it, the gleam of a wild firelight.
The Bells are ringing for Fairy Mass,
The birchwood leaves between:
And the birches see the Fairies pass,
In jerkins grey and green:
But the Church of the soulless Fairies, no one has ever seen.
Their way dips deep in the birchwood's heart:
And soft as chimes the bell, —
They start! they leave their charms apart,
Their Chrissom beads to tell,
And troop to the church where no churchyard is; but only a forest well.
I know the way the Fairies take:
The Grey Book told before: —
" Twice twine around the birchen brake!
Once down thro' the birchen floor,
And thrice beneath the running brook, brings then to a buried door."
No one may find the Fairy door,
But there came a subtler smell
Than e'er was brewed from the forest store,
And the dead leaves in the well:
And there came upon the wind again the chime of an elfin bell.
Oh, surely then the door swung wide,
The secret censers sent their smoke
That, floating on the cool night-tide,
Was wafted here, and broke
In forest fragrance thousand-fold, where the birches bow to the Druid Oak.
But now the first wild wing of fire
Flies from the mountain tops;
The wood-doves coo; and a fainter choir
Is heard as the elf-bell stops, —
A hymn that can never to heaven, but dies in the hazel copse.
The little people weep within,
As they hark to the Holy Mass:
At heart, they pray for the mortal sin
Of man, that lets him pass
The Bridge of Dread; for the Fairies tire, they tire the reed and the grass.
They tire of birch and holly tree,
They tire of moth and snake;
They tire of the herring in the sea,
The greybird in the brake!
Earth folds all fast asleep again; the Fairies it cannot take.
Last night we went by Celyn Church,
Whose chancel breaks the waves,
And there, around the crumbling porch,
The small folk swept the graves,
And prayed, you said, for that pale sleep of ours, that slays and saves:
In salt sea sand, or holly mould,
Sweet may we sleep at last,
Oh Nesta, ere our dreams grow cold,
Or out of heaven are cast!
Or we come back to Caera wood, and find the fairies pass'd!
The year is come to its golden moon
And old Midsummer night:
The watchfires will be lighted soon
On Caera's purple height,
To cast on the birchwood below it, the gleam of a wild firelight.
The Bells are ringing for Fairy Mass,
The birchwood leaves between:
And the birches see the Fairies pass,
In jerkins grey and green:
But the Church of the soulless Fairies, no one has ever seen.
Their way dips deep in the birchwood's heart:
And soft as chimes the bell, —
They start! they leave their charms apart,
Their Chrissom beads to tell,
And troop to the church where no churchyard is; but only a forest well.
I know the way the Fairies take:
The Grey Book told before: —
" Twice twine around the birchen brake!
Once down thro' the birchen floor,
And thrice beneath the running brook, brings then to a buried door."
No one may find the Fairy door,
But there came a subtler smell
Than e'er was brewed from the forest store,
And the dead leaves in the well:
And there came upon the wind again the chime of an elfin bell.
Oh, surely then the door swung wide,
The secret censers sent their smoke
That, floating on the cool night-tide,
Was wafted here, and broke
In forest fragrance thousand-fold, where the birches bow to the Druid Oak.
But now the first wild wing of fire
Flies from the mountain tops;
The wood-doves coo; and a fainter choir
Is heard as the elf-bell stops, —
A hymn that can never to heaven, but dies in the hazel copse.
The little people weep within,
As they hark to the Holy Mass:
At heart, they pray for the mortal sin
Of man, that lets him pass
The Bridge of Dread; for the Fairies tire, they tire the reed and the grass.
They tire of birch and holly tree,
They tire of moth and snake;
They tire of the herring in the sea,
The greybird in the brake!
Earth folds all fast asleep again; the Fairies it cannot take.
Last night we went by Celyn Church,
Whose chancel breaks the waves,
And there, around the crumbling porch,
The small folk swept the graves,
And prayed, you said, for that pale sleep of ours, that slays and saves:
In salt sea sand, or holly mould,
Sweet may we sleep at last,
Oh Nesta, ere our dreams grow cold,
Or out of heaven are cast!
Or we come back to Caera wood, and find the fairies pass'd!
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