Hush, child. I meant to use it lengthways. 'Twould have made A feather-bed complete for your poor Much, Take it!
O Robin, what a fairy palace! How cold and grey the walls of castles seem Beside your forest's fragrant halls and bowers. I do not think that I shall be afraid To sleep this night, as I have often been Beneath our square bleak battlements.
And look, Between the boughs, there is your guard, all night, That great white star, white as an angel's wings, White as the star that shone on Bethlehem! Good-night, sweetheart, good-night!
One kiss! Oh, clear bright eyes, dear heavens of sweeter stars, Where angels play, and your own sweeter soul Smiles like a child into the face of God, Good-night! Good-night!
[_MARIAN goes into the hut. The door is shut. ROBIN goes to the mouth of the cave and throws himself down on a couch of deerskins. The light grows dimly rich and fairy-like._]
[_A little moonlit cloud comes floating down between the tree-tops into the glade. TITANIA is seen reposing upon it. She steps to earth. The cloud melts away._]
How blows the wind from fairyland, Titania?
Shadow-of-a-Leaf, the wicked queen has heard Your master's plan for saving poor Will Scarlet. She knows Maid Marian will be left alone, Unguarded in these woods. The wicked Prince Will steal upon her loneliness. He plots To carry her away.
What can we do? Can I not break my fairy vows and tell?
No, no; you cannot, even if you would, Convey our fairy lore to mortal ears. When have they heard our honeysuckle bugles Blowing reveille to the crimson dawn? We can but speak by dreams; and, if you spoke, They'd whip you, for your words would all ring false Like sweet bells out of tune.
Nothing, except on pain of death, to stay The course of Time and Tide. There's Oberon!
Where's Orchis? Where's our fairy trumpeter To call the court together?
Bugle them hither; let thy red cheeks puff Until thy curled petallic trumpet thrill More loudly than a yellow-banded bee Thro' all the clover clumps and boughs of thyme. They are scattered far abroad.
My liege, it shall Outroar the very wasp!
[_As he speaks, the fairies come flocking from all sides into the glade._]
Methinks they grow Too fond of feasting. As I passed this way I saw the fairy halls of hollowed oaks All lighted with their pale green glow-worm lamps. And under great festoons of maiden-hair Their brilliant mushroom tables groaned with food. Hundreds of rose-winged fairies banqueted! All Sherwood glittered with their prismy goblets Brimming the thrice refined and luscious dew Not only of our own most purplest violets, But of strange fragrance, wild exotic nectars, Drawn from the fairy blossoms of some star Beyond our tree-tops! Ay, beyond that moon Which is our natural limit--the big lamp Heaven lights upon our boundary.