The Fairies Dancing 1873

Listen to:

The Fairies Dancing (1:21)

by Walter de la Mare 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Walter de la Mare was born this day in 1873

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.