The Project Gutenberg EBook of Down-Adown-Derry, by Walter De La Mare This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Down-Adown-Derry A Book of Fairy Poems Author: Walter De La Mare Illustrator: Dorothy P. Lathrop Release Date: April 22, 2010 [EBook #32091] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DOWN-ADOWN-DERRY *** Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) DOWN-ADOWN-DERRY Cover Title Page DOWN-ADOWN-DERRY A Book of Fairy Poems by WALTER DE LA MARE with Illustrations by DOROTHY P. LATHROP NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY PRINTED IN U. S. A. CONTENTS PAGE Fairies The Fairies Dancing 3 Dream-Song 4 A-Tishoo 7 The Double 8 The Unfinished Dream 11 The Horn 14 The Three Beggars 17 The Stranger 20 The Ruin 23 The Fairy in Winter 24 Sleepyhead 27 Sam's Three Wishes: or Life's Little Whirligig 29 Peak and Puke 39 The Changeling 41 Lob Lie by the Fire 45 Bluebells 48 The Honey Robbers 51 Berries 55 Happy, Happy It Is to Be 58 The Midden's Song 63 All But Blind 64 The Mocking Fairy 69 Down-Adown-Derry 70 Witches and Witchcraft The Hare 76 I Saw Three Witches 79 The Isle of Lone 81 Sunk Lyonesse 86 Sleeping Beauty 89 Bewitched 91 The Enchanted Hill 93 The Ride-By-Nights 97 Off the Ground 99 Sadly, O, Sadly 105 The Dwarf 109 Longlegs 112 The Mermaids 116 The Little Creature 119 Sam 121 The Witch 125 The Journey 129 As Lucy Went A-Walking 134 The World of Dream Beware! 140 Some One 143 Music 147 Haunted 149 They Told Me 151 The Sunken Garden 153 Snow 155 The World of Dream 159 Queen Djenira 162 [v] [vi] [vii] Nightfall 165 Cumberland 167 The Little Green Orchard 171 The Truants 173 The Little Salamander 177 Voices 178 Sorcery 181 Melmillo 187 The Quiet Enemy 188 Mistletoe 191 Not I 195 FAIRIES THE FAIRIES DANCING I heard along the early hills, Ere yet the lark was risen up, Ere yet the dawn with firelight fills The night-dew of the bramble-cup,— I heard the fairies in a ring Sing as they tripped a lilting round Soft as the moon on wavering wing. The starlight shook as if with sound, As if with echoing, and the stars Prankt their bright eyes with trembling gleams While red with war the gusty Mars Rained upon earth his ruddy beams. He shone alone, low down the West, While I, behind a hawthorn-bush, Watched on the fairies flaxen-tressed The fires of the morning flush. Till, as a mist, their beauty died, Their singing shrill and fainter grew; And daylight tremulous and wide Flooded the moorland through and through; Till Urdon's copper weathercock Was reared in golden flame afar, And dim from moonlit dreams awoke The towers and groves of Arroar. To contents DREAM-SONG [3] [4] Sunlight, moonlight, Twilight, starlight— Gloaming at the close of day, And an owl calling, Cool dews falling In a wood of oak and may. Lantern-light, taper-light, Torchlight, no-light: Darkness at the shut of day, And lions roaring, Their wrath pouring In wild waste places far away. Elf-light, bat-light, Touchwood-light and toad-light, And the sea a shimmering gloom of grey, And a small face smiling In a dream's beguiling In a world of wonders far away. To contents [5] [6] A-TISHOO "Sneeze, Pretty, sneeze, Dainty, Else the Elves will have you sure, Sneeze, Light-of-Seven-Bright-Candles, See they're tippeting at the door; Their wee feet in measure falling, All their little voices calling, Calling, calling, calling, calling— Sneeze, or never come no more!" "A-tishoo!" To contents THE DOUBLE I curtseyed to the dovecote. I curtseyed to the well. I twirled me round and round about, The morning sweets to smell. When out I came from spinning so, Lo, betwixt green and blue Was the ghost of me—a Fairy Child— A-dancing—dancing, too. Nought was of her wearing That is the earth's array. Her thistledown feet beat airy fleet Yet set no blade astray. The gossamer shining dews of June Showed grey against the green; Yet never so much as a bird-claw print [7] [8] Of footfall to be seen. Fading in the mounting sun That image soon did pine. Fainter than moonlight thinned the locks That shone as clear as mine. Vanished! Vanished! O, sad it is To spin and spin—in vain; And never to see the ghost of me A-dancing there again. To contents THE UNFINISHED DREAM [9] [10] [11] Rare-sweet the air in that unimagined country— My spirit had wandered far From its weary body close-enwrapt in slumber Where its home and earth-friends are; A milk-like air—and of light all abundance; And there a river clear Painting the scene like a picture on its bosom, Green foliage drifting near. No sign of life I saw, as I pressed onward, Fish, nor beast, nor bird, Till I came to a hill clothed in flowers to its summit, Then shrill small voices I heard. And I saw from concealment a company of elf-folk With faces strangely fair, Talking their unearthly scattered talk together, A bind of green-grasses in their hair, Marvellously gentle, feater far than children, In gesture, mien and speech, Hastening onward in translucent shafts of sunshine, And gossiping each with each. Straw-light their locks, on neck and shoulder falling, Faint of almond the silks they wore, Spun not of worm, but as if inwoven of moonbeams And foam on rock-bound shore; Like lank-legged grasshoppers in June-tide meadows, Amalillios of the day, Hungrily gazed upon by me—a stranger, In unknown regions astray. Yet, happy beyond words, I marked their sunlit faces, Stealing soft enchantment from their eyes, Tears in my own confusing their small image, Harkening their bird-like cries. They passed me, unseeing, a waft of flocking linnets; Sadly I fared on my way; And came in my dream to a dreamlike habitation, Close-shut, festooned and grey. Pausing, I gazed at the porch dust-still, vine-wreathèd, [12] [13] Worn the stone steps thereto, Mute hung its bell, whence a stony head looked downward, Grey 'gainst the sky's pale-blue— Strange to me: strange.... To contents THE HORN Hark! is that a horn I hear, In cloudland winding sweet— And bell-like clash of bridle-rein, And silver-shod light feet? Is it the elfin laughter Of fairies riding faint and high, Beneath the branches of the moon, Straying through the starry sky? Is it in the globèd dew Such sweet melodies may fall? Wood and valley—all are still, Hushed the shepherd's call. To contents [14] [15] [16] THE THREE BEGGARS 'Twas autumn daybreak gold and wild, While past St. Ann's grey tower they shuffled, Three beggars spied a fairy-child In crimson mantle muffled. The daybreak lighted up her face All pink, and sharp, and emerald-eyed; She looked on them a little space, And shrill as hautboy cried:— "O three tall footsore men of rags Which walking this gold morn I see, What will ye give me from your bags For fairy kisses three?" The first, that was a reddish man, Out of his bundle takes a crust: "La, by the tombstones of St. Ann, There's fee, if fee ye must!" The second, that was a chestnut man, Out of his bundle draws a bone: "Lo, by the belfry of St. Ann, And all my breakfast gone!" The third, that was a yellow man, Out of his bundle picks a groat, "La, by the Angel of St. Ann, And I must go without." That changeling, lean and icy-lipped, Touched crust, and bone, and groat, and lo! Beneath her finger taper-tipped The magic all ran through. [17] [18] [19] Instead of crust a peacock pie, Instead of bone sweet venison, Instead of groat a white lily With seven blooms thereon. And each fair cup was deep with wine: Such was the changeling's charity, The sweet feast was enough for nine, But not too much for three. O toothsome meat in jelly froze! O tender haunch of elfin stag! O rich the odour that arose! O plump with scraps each bag! There, in the daybreak gold and wild, Each merry-hearted beggar man Drank deep unto the fairy child, And blessed the good St. Ann. To contents THE STRANGER In the nook of a wood where a pool freshed with dew Glassed, daybreak till evening, blue sky glimpsing through Then a star; or a slip of May-moon silver-white, Thridding softly aloof the quiet of night, Was a thicket of flowers. Willow herb, mint, pale speedwell and rattle Water hemlock and sundew—to the wind's tittle-tattle They nodded, dreamed, swayed in jocund delight, In beauty and sweetness arrayed, still and bright. By turn scampered rabbit; trotted fox; bee and bird Paused droning, sang shrill, and the fair water stirred. Plashed green frog, or some brisk little flickering fish— Gudgeon, stickleback, minnow—set the ripples a-swish. A lone pool, a pool grass-fringed, crystal-clear: Deep, placid, and cool in the sweet of the year; Edge-parched when the sun to the Dog Days drew near; And with winter's bleak rime hard as glass, robed in snow, The whole wild-wood sleeping, and nothing a-blow But the wind from the North—bringing snow. That is all. Save that one long, sweet, June night-tide straying, The harsh hemlock's pale umbelliferous bloom Tenting nook, dense with fragrance and secret with gloom, In a beaming of moon-colored light faintly raying, On buds orbed with dew phosphorescently playing, Came a Stranger—still-footed, feat-fingered, clear face Unhumanly lovely: ... and supped in that place. [20] To contents THE RUIN [21] [22] [23] When the last colours of the day Have from their burning ebbed away, About that ruin, cold and lone, The cricket shrills from stone to stone; And scattering o'er its darkened green, Bands of the fairies may be seen, Chattering like grasshoppers, their feet Dancing a thistledown dance round it: While the great gold of the mild moon Tinges their tiny acorn shoon. To contents THE FAIRY IN WINTER There was a Fairy—flake of winter— Who, when the snow came, whispering, Silence, Sister crystal to crystal sighing, Making of meadow argent palace, Night a star-sown solitude, Cried 'neath her frozen eaves, "I burn here!" Wings diaphanous, beating bee-like, Wand within fingers, locks enspangled, Icicle foot, lip sharp as scarlet, She lifted her eyes in her pitch-black hollow— Green as stalks of weeds in water— Breathed: stirred. Rilled from her heart the ichor, coursing, Flamed and awoke her slumbering magic. Softlier than moth's her pinions trembled; Out into blackness, light-like, she flittered, Leaving her hollow cold, forsaken. In air, o'er crystal, rang twangling night-wind. Bare, rimed pine-woods murmured lament. [24] To contents SLEEPYHEAD [25] [26] [27]