Richard Middleton

1882-1911

I come from woods enchaunted,

Starlit and pixey-haunted,

   Where ‘twixt the bracken and the trees

   The goblins lie and take their ease

By winter moods undaunted.




There down the golden gravel

The laughing rivers travel;

   Elves wake at nights and whisper low 

   Between the bracken and the snow

Their dreaming to unravel.




Twisted and lank and hairy,

With wanton eyes and wary,

   They stretch and chuckle in the wind,

   For one has found a mermaid kind,

And one has kissed a fairy.




They know no melancholy,

But fashion crowns of holly,

   And gather sleep within the brake

   To deck a kingdom when they wake,

And bless the dreamer’s folly.




Ah!  would that I might follow

The servants of Apollo!

   But it is sweet to heap the hours

   With quiet dreams and poppy-flowers,

Down in the pixies’ hollow.