And on key-cold floor them throw.
If out they cry, then forth I fly,
And loudly laugh out, ho, ho, ho!

When any need to borrowe ought,
We lend them what they do require;
And for the use demand we nought:
Our owne is all we do desire.
If to repay,

They do delay,

Abroad amongst them then I go,

And night by night I them affright, With pinchings, dreams, and ho, ho, ho!

When lazie queans have nought to do,
But study how to cog1 and lye;
To make debate and mischief too,
'Twixt one another secretlye:
I marke their gloze,'

And it disclose,

To them who they have wrongéd so:
When I have done, I get me gone,
And leave them scolding, ho, ho, ho!

When men do traps and engines set

In loope-holes where the vermine creep,

Who from their foldes and houses get

Their ducks and geese, and lambes and sheep: I spy the gin,

And enter in,

And seeme a vermine taken so;

But when they there approach me neare,

I leap out laughing, ho, ho, ho!

To lie, to wheedle.

Flattering, wheedling

By wells and rills, in meadows greene,
We nightly dance our hey-dey guise,
And to our fairye king and queene
We chant our moonlight minstrelsies.
When larks 'gin sing,
Away we fling,

And babes new-borne steale as we go,
An elf in bed we leave instead,
And wend us laughing, ho, ho, ho!

From hag-bred Merlin's time have I
Thus nightly revelled to and fro;
And for my pranks men call me by
The name of Robin Good-fellow.
Friends, ghosts, and sprites,
Who haunt the nights,

The hags and goblins do me know;
And beldames old my feates have told;
So, Vale, Vale; ho, ho, hol

III

THE ISLES OF THE SEA FAIRIES

Mary Howitt

MONG the Isles of the golden Mist,
I lived for many a year:

And all that chanced unto me there

'Tis well that ye should hear.

I dwelt in a hall of silvery pearl,
With rainbow-light inlaid;

I sate on a throne, old as the sea,
Of the ruby coral made.