Howard Pyle: The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood

11. Robin Hood and Allan a Dale (continued)

MAY ELLEN'S WEDDING

(Giving an account of how she was beloved by a fairy prince, who took her to his own home.)

"May Ellen sat beneath a thorn
And in a shower around
The blossoms fell at every breeze
Like snow upon the ground,
And in a lime tree near was heard
The sweet song of a strange, wild bird.
"O sweet, sweet, sweet, O piercing sweet,
O lingering sweet the strain!
May Ellen's heart within her breast
Stood still with blissful pain:
And so, with listening, upturned face,
She sat as dead in that fair place.

" `Come down from out the blossoms, bird!
Come down from out the tree,
And on my heart I'll let thee lie,
And love thee tenderly!'
Thus cried May Ellen, soft and low,
From where the hawthorn shed its snow.

"Down dropped the bird on quivering wing,
From out the blossoming tree,
And nestled in her snowy breast.
`My love! my love!' cried she;
Then straightway home, 'mid sun and flower,
She bare him to her own sweet bower.

"The day hath passed to mellow night,
The moon floats o'er the lea,
And in its solemn, pallid light
A youth stands silently:
A youth of beauty strange and rare,
Within May Ellen's bower there.

"He stood where o'er the pavement cold
The glimmering moonbeams lay.
May Ellen gazed with wide, scared eyes,
Nor could she turn away,
For, as in mystic dreams we see
A spirit, stood he silently.

"All in a low and breathless voice,
`Whence comest thou?' said she;
`Art thou the creature of a dream,
Or a vision that I see?'
Then soft spake he, as night winds shiver
Through straining reeds beside the river.

" `I came, a bird on feathered wing,
From distant Faeryland
Where murmuring waters softly sing
Upon the golden strand,
Where sweet trees are forever green;
And there my mother is the queen.'