A much better and more solid version of the same fancy than the one given in the "Selections" under the head of "Love's Secret;" which is rather weakly and lax in manner. Our present poem has on the other hand an exquisite "lithe" grace of limb and suppleness of step, suiting deliciously with the "light high laugh" in its tone: while for sweet and rapid daring, for angelically puerile impudence as it were, it may be matched against any song of its fantastic sort.
Less complete in a small way, but worth taking some care of, is this carol of a fairy, emblem of a man's light hard tyranny of will, calling upon the birds in the harness of Venus and the shafts in the hand of her son for help in setting up the kingdom of established and legal love: but caught himself in the very setting of his net.
THE MARRIAGE RING.
"'Come hither, my sparrows,
My little arrows.
If a tear or a smile
Will a man beguile,
If an amorous delay
Clouds a sunshiny day,
If the step of a foot
Smites the heart to its root,
'Tis the marriage ring
Makes each fairy a king.'
So a fairy sang.
From the leaves I sprang;
He leaped from his spray
diluted as by tepid water: the angel (one might say) has his sting blunted and the best quill of his pinion pulled out.
And without one word said
Had a peach from the tree;
And still as a maid," &c.
