162 VOICES FROM THE WOODLANDS. 



Not one conld spare her a jot of room ; 



They left her, at last, to her dreadful doom ! 



The strong wind carried her off the ground, 



Beat her, and hurled her, and swung her round ; 



Lifted her up in the sleety air, 



Wafted her here, and drifted her there; 



In vain she struggled, with piercing shriek, 



The wind was mighty, and she was weak, 



Out of the wood, away it bore her, 



"Where valley and hill lay stretched before her, 



Over the villages, over the towns, 



Over the long smooth Devonshire downs, 



Many a breathless, terrified mile, 



Till past even Weymouth and Portland Isle. 



Woe is me ! Ah, woe is me, 



The little wood-sprite was blown out to sea." 



Friends, however, came to her aid, in the moment of 

 greatest dread; and the fairy of the hawthorn found a 

 new home in the hospitable hollow of an old oak, suf- 

 ficiently large to contain fifty wood-sprites. 



" And there she lives ; and if you could know, 

 The moment, exactly, you ought to go, 

 And could just get leave to be out at night 

 You might see them dance in the clear moonlight ; 



