Elfin music: an anthology of English fairy poetry

He did not ask her, but she asked him,
To be her lover.

Once the king confessed that she was fairer and brighter than his wife—

With that, Lady Triamour goes to the queen,
And blew such a breath on her,
That she could never see again. In the original poem, Triamour blinds the Queen for her false accusations.
The lady leaped onto her horse
And bid them all have a good day;
She would stay no longer.
At that moment, the squire Gyfre came quickly,
Leading Launfal's steed out of the forest,
And stood beside Launfal.
The knight leaped onto his horse,
Immediately and without any delay,
To ride away with his mistress.
The lady took each of her maidens,
And went the way she had come before,
With happiness and with pride.

She carried her lover to a "beautiful island" called Olyroun. On a certain day every year, you may still see the knight Launfal’s horse and hear his loud neighing as he goes wearily seeking his master. For in truth, Launfal was taken into fairyland, and

Since then, no man has seen him in this land,
And I can tell you no more of him,
In truth, without a lie,

as Thomas Chestre states in his closing lines.

This little volume is devoted to a sweet and delightful section of poetic fancy, rather than to the lofty flights of inspired imagination. It is full of happiness and beauty, and though it is not a temple enshrining the rarest gems, it is a storehouse of elegant creations. If individual poems are occasionally found to fall below the general level of their authors—as perhaps in the case of Robert Herrick—an explanation may be found in the lighthearted spirit with which the subject has too frequently been approached by our English poets. They have generally represented a class that felt superior to the superstitions and sometimes to the faiths of their time. In cases like that of James Hogg, the "Ettrick Shepherd," for whom the doctrine of spiritual beings was still a reality, those elemental intelligences—

Which have their haunts in valley and pine-covered mountain,
Or forests, by slow streams or tinkling brooks,

still survived in the "faith of reason." In his work, we find the concentrated strength of a vivid and mature imagination devoted to the production of a true fairy poem that is "not for an age, but for all time."

A final word must be said regarding the arrangement of this anthology. The absence of a