Chapter I: Front Matter

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PUCK IN PASTURE

PUCK IN PASTURE

_VERSE & DECORATIONS BY_

ELIZABETH MACKINSTRY

Published by _Doubleday, Page & Co._, at their _Country Life Press_, GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK MCMXXV

COPYRIGHT, 1925, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES AT THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.

FIRST EDITION

_To Emily Howland Lyman_

CONTENTS

PAGE

PUCK IN PASTURE 1

THE FAIRY RAIDERS 8

THE LEPRECAUN 10

TIR-N’AN-OG 12

THE ELFIN ANGELUS 13

GIRL’S SONG 19

FAWN O’MERA 20

THE ELFIN HILLS 24

THE ELFIN FAIR 28

THE PLAINT OF THE CAPTIVE FIELD MOUSE 31

THE MAN THAT GOT THE CALL 32

THE OLD SHIP 35

TO THE WIND 39

MIDSUMMER’S NIGHT 40

THE CARAVAN 42

THE GYPSY BABY 45

THE WILD GEESE 46

A FAIRY SONG 48

THE NIXIE’S POOL 50

THE BECKONING OUT 52

SONG 56

THE OSPREY FOLK 57

MERLIN 61

THE PRINCESS OF YAN 69

THE SPELL OF COLD 74

THE OLD POET FORETELLS THE MANNER OF HIS DEATH 77

PUCK IN PASTURE

’Twas after a wild and a hedgerow night
I woke from my sleep the morn,
And I heard a Parson saying his prayers
All under a sweet white thorn.

O solemn and lovely the words he said,
Each word like a homing dove,
Till I grew ashamed of my ill-spent life
And the fern-seed manner thereof.

“O I will go down to Farmer Brown
His cot in the rushy glen,
And ask for work, and I’ll bear my part,
A man in the world of men.”

So I routed me up to a mortal size
With a voice that I thickened rough,
“And could I have bed for milking the cows,
And the milk would be board enough?”

“I’m thinking you’ve milked more purses than cows,”
Says the Farmer astraddle the lea
With his two big boots in a cowslip bed,
“So it’s see and believe, for me!”

Well, the first that I tackled was old Brown Bess,
And she was a shirker sure,
But I shot her stiff with a few cold words
On her ways wi’ the Bull o’ the Moor.

And I milked her hard, and I milked her fast,
And she dared not flicker one red
Square half inch of her old cow hide,
And the eyes popped out of his head.

“Well, I milked her boy, and I milked her man,
But never in all my days
Has the old cow frothered up such a pail!”
And the milk sang a roundelays,

Hollow and sweet in the empty pail,
Tinkling round the brim,
Hushy and soft when the pail was full,
And O that was the beat of him.