166

SELECT POETRY

Hand in hand we'll dance around,
For this place is fairy ground.

When mortals are at rest,

And snoring in their nest,
Unheard and unespied
Through key-holes we do glide ;
Over tables, stools, and shelves,
We trip it with our fairy elves.

And if the house is swept,
And from uncleanness kept,
We praise the household maid,
And duly she is paid ;

For every night before we go,
We drop a tester’ in her shoe.

Then o’er the mushroom’s head

Our table-cloth we spread ;

A grain of rye or wheat,

The manchet? that we eat ;

Pearly drops of dew we drink

In acorn-cups filled to the brink.
The grasshopper, gnat, and fly,
Serve for our minstrelsy ;

Grace said, we dance awhile,

And so the time beguile ;

And if the moon doth hide her head,
The glow-worm lights us home to bed

O’er tops of dewy grass
So nimbly do we pass,

 Tester—a sixpence.
2 Manchet—a emall white loaf—food,