THE MERRY PRANKS OF ROBIN GOOD-FELLOW.

From Oberon, in fairy land,

The king of ghosts and shadowes there,

Mad Robin, I, at his command,

Am sent to viewe the night-sports here.
What revell rout

Is kept about

In every corner where I go,

I will o'ersee

And merrie be,

And make good sport with ho, ho, ho!

More swift than lightning can I flye

About the aery welkin soone,

And in a minute's space descrye

Each thing that's done belowe the moone.

There's not a hag

Or ghost shall wag,

Or cry 'ware goblins! where I go,

But Robin, I,

Their feates will spy,

And send them home with ho, ho, ho!

Whene'er such wanderers I meete,

As from their night-sports they trudge home,

With counterfeiting voice I greete,

And call them on with me to roame.

Thro' woods, thro' lakes,

Thro' bogs, thro' brakes;

Or else, unseene, with them I go,

All in the nicke,

To play some tricke,

And frolick it with ho, ho, ho!

When men do traps and engines set

In loope holes, where the vermine creepe,

Who from their foldes and houses get

Their duckes and geese, and lambes and sheepe;
I spy the gin,

And enter in,

And seeme a vermin taken so;

But when they there

Approach me neare,

I leap out laughing ho, ho, ho

By wells and rills, in meadowes green,

We nightly dance our hey-day guise;
And to our fairye kinge and queene
We chaunt our moon-lighte minstrelsies.
When larkes gin singe,

Away we flinge;

And babes new-born steale as we go,

And shoes in bed

We leave instead,

And wend us laughing ho, ho, ho!

From hag-bred Merlin's time have I

Thus nightly revell'd to and fro : And for my prankes, men call me by The name of Robin Good-Fellow. Friends, ghosts, and sprites Who haunt the nightes,

The hags and goblins do me know,

And beldames old

My feates have told,

So vale, vale, ho, ho, ho!

Anonymous-attributed to BEN JONSON, about 1600.

FAIRIES.

SLAVIC.

AN OLD BALLAD.

The maiden went for water

To the well o'er the meadow away; She there could draw no water, So thick the frost it lay.

The mother she grew angry,

She had it long to bemoan;

"O daughter mine, O daughter mine, I would thou wert a stone !"

The maiden's water-pitcher
Grew marble instantly,
And she herself, the maiden,
Became a maple tree.

There came one day two lads,

Two minstrels young they were; "We've traveled far, my brother, Such a maple we saw nowhere.

"Come let us cut a fiddle,

One fiddle for me and you, And from the same fine maple,

For each one, fiddlesticks two."

They cut into the maple

Then splashed the blood so red;

The lads fell to the ground,

So sore were they afraid.

Then spake from within the maiden : "Wherefore afraid are you?

Cut out of me one fiddle,

And for each one fiddlesticks two.

"Then go and play right sadly,
To my mother's door begone,
And sing: Here is thy daughter
Whom thou didst curse to stone."

The lads they went, and sadly
Their song to play began;
The mother when she heard
Right to the window ran.

"O lads, dear lads, be silent,
Do not my pain increase,
For since I've lost my daughter,

My pain doth never cease!"

Translated by MRS. ROBINSON,

COTTAGE FAIRY.

"Sisters! I have seen this night

A hundred cottage fires burn bright,
And a thousand happy faces shining

In the burning blaze, and the gleam declining.

I care, not I, for the stars above,

The lights on earth are the lights I love;

Let Venus blur the evening air,

Uprise at morn Prince Lucifer;

But those little tiny stars be mine

That through the softened copse-wood shine.
With beauty crown the pastoral hill,
And glimmer o'er the sylvan rill,

Where stands the peasant's ivied nest,
And the huge mill-wheel is at rest.
From out the honeysuckle's blcom
I peep'd into that laughing room,
Then, like a hail-drop on the pane,
Pattering, I still'd the din again,
While every startled eye looked up,
And, half-raised to her lips the cup,
The rosy maiden's look met mine!

But I vail'd mine eyes with the silken twine
Of the small wild roses, clustering thickly;
Then to her seat returning quickly,

She 'gan to talk with bashful glee
Of fairies 'neath the greenwood tree
Dancing by moonlight, and she blest
Gently our silent land of rest.

The infants playing on the floor,

At these wild words their sports gave o'er,

And ask'd where liv'd the Cottage Fairy;

The maid replied, She loves to tarry

Ofttimes beside our very hearth,

And joins in little children's mirth,