On the Eve of St. John

Dizzily round,
On the elf-hills, white in the mellow moonlight,
To a sweet, unholy, ravishing sound
Of wizard voices from underground,
Their mazy dance the Elle-maids wound
On St. John's Eve.

Beautiful white,
Like a wreath of mist by the starbeams kissed,
Their frail, sweet faces bloomed out of the night,
With floating tresses of firefly light,
That puffed like foam to the left and the right,
On St. John's Eve.

Fitfully there
They danced like the daughters of starlit waters,--
But I saw what a mockery all of them were,
With their hollow bodies, when the moonlit air
Rayed out of their eyes with a glow-worm glare,
On St. John's Eve.

I turned my feet
To the river's banks: in the rush-flowers' ranks
I heard the Necken their songs repeat:
A music all made of the water's beat,
Of moss and of whispering winds that meet,
On St. John's Eve.

They called my name;
And I saw them there, in their beauty rare,
On the moonlit waves whence the music came,
With their harps of gold, and their locks of flame
Blown over pale brows, sans sin or blame,
On St. John's Eve.

'Twas nearing morn
When I turned me home; and a wizen'd gnome,
A Nis, all gray with flailing the corn,
And strong with the scent of byre and barn,
Scowled at me under the haunted thorn,
On St. John's Eve.

To end it all,
As I passed the hill by the ruined mill,
The hill rose up on pillars tall,
Crimson pillars that ranked a hall,
Where the Dwarfs and the Trolls were holding a ball,
On St. John's Eve.

One reached to me
A goblet of gold of a vintage old,
And I drank, and mixed with their mirth and glee,
And danced with them for an hour, may be.--
But they tell me now 'tis a year, you see,
Since St. John's Eve.