Part III: The Hideous Hermit

Ah, what wonders round us roseWhen we dared to pause and look,Curious things that seemed all toes,Goblins from a picture-book;Ants like witches, four feet high,Waving all their skinny arms,Glared at us and wandered by,Muttering their ancestral charms.

Stately forms in green and goldArmour strutted through the glades,Just as Hamlet's ghost, we're told,Mooned among the midnight shades:

Once a sort of devil cameScattering broken trees about,Winged with leather, eyed with flame,--He was but a moth, no doubt.

Here and there, above us clombFeathery clumps of palm on high:Those were ferns, of course, but someReally seemed to touch the sky;Yes; and down one fragrant glade,Listening as we onward stole,Half delighted, half afraid,Dong, we heard the hare-bells toll!

Something told us what that gleamDown the glen was brooding o'er;Something told us in a dreamWhat the bells were tolling for!Something told us there was fear,Horror, peril, on our way!Was it far or was it near?Near, we heard the night-wind say.

Toll, the music reeled and pealedThrough the vast and sombre trees,Where a rosy light revealedDimmer, sweeter mysteries;And, like petals of the rose,Fairy fans in beauty beat,Light in light--ah, what were thoseRhymes we heard the night repeat?

Toll, a dream within a dream,Up an aisle of rose and blue,Up the music's perfumed streamCame the words, and then we knew,

Knew that in that distant glenOnce again the case was tried,Hark!--Who killed Cock Robin, then?And a tiny voice replied,"IkilledCockRobin!"

"I! And who are You, sir, pray?"Growled a voice that froze our marrow:"Who!" we heard the murderer say,"Lord, sir, I'm the famous Sparrow,And this 'ere's my bow and arrow!IkilledCockRobin!"

Then, with one great indrawn breath,Such a sighin' and a sobbin'Rose all round us for the deathOf poor, poor Cock Robin,Oh, we couldn't bear to waitEven to hear the murderer's fate,Which we'd often wished to knowSitting in the fireside glowAnd with hot revengeful looksSearched for in the nursery-books;For the Robin and the WrenAre such friends to mortal men,Such dear friends to mortal men!

Toll; and through the woods once moreStole we, drenched with fragrant dew:Toll; the hare-bell's burden boreDeeper meanings than we knew:Still it told us there was fear,Horror, peril on our way!Was it far or was it near?Near, we heard the night-wind say!

Near; and once or twice we sawSomething like a monstrous eye,Something like a hideous clawSteal between us and the sky:Still we hummed a dauntless tuneTrying to think such things might beGlimpses of the fairy moonHiding in some hairy tree.

Yet around us as we wentThrough the glades of rose and blueSweetness with the horror blentWonder-wild in scent and hue:Here Aladdin's cavern yawned,Jewelled thick with gorgeous dyes;There a head of clover dawnedLike a cloud In eastern skies.

Hills of topaz, lakes of dew,Fairy cliffs of crystal sheenPassed we; and the forest's blueSea of branches tossed between:Once we saw a gryphon makeOne soft iris as it passedLike the curving meteor's wakeO'er the forest, far and fast.

Winged with purple, breathing flame,Crimson-eyed we saw him go,Where--ah! could it be the sameCockchafer we used to know?--Valley-lilies overhead,High aloof in clustered spray,Far through heaven their splendour spread,Glimmering like the Milky Way.

Mammoths father calls "extinct,"Creatures that the cave-men feared,Through that forest walked and blinked,Through that jungle crawled and leered;Beasts no Nimrod ever knew,Woolly bears black and red;Crocodiles, we wondered whoEver dared to see them fed,

Were they lizards? If they were,They could swallow us with ease;But they slumbered quietly thereIn among the mighty trees;Red and silver, blue and green,Played the moonlight on their scales;Golden eyes they had, and leanCrookèd legs with cruel nails.

Yet again, oh, faint and far,Came the shadow of a cry,Like the calling of a starTo its brother in the sky;Like an echo in a caveWhere young mermen sound their shells,Like the wind across a graveBright with scent of lily-bells.

Like a fairy hunter's hornSounding in some purple glenSweet revelly to the mornAnd the fairy quest again:Then, all round it surged a songWe could never understandThough it lingered with us long,And it seemed so sad and grand.