The prince had a melancholy air, and he sat apart from the banquet, gazing abstractedly on the Rhine.
"Ah!" whispered Nymphalin to herself, "does he think of me?"
Presently the prince drew forth a little flute hollowed from a small reed, and began to play a mournful air. Nymphalin listened with delight; it was one he had learned in her dominions.
When the air was over, the prince rose, and approaching the banqueters, despatched them on different errands; one to visit the dwarf of the Drachenfels, another to look after the grave of Musaeus, and a whole detachment to puzzle the students of Heidelberg. A few launched themselves upon willow leaves on the Rhine to cruise about in the starlight, and an other band set out a hunting after the gray-legged moth. The prince was left alone; and now Nymphalin, seeing the coast clear, wrapped herself up in a cloak made out of a withered leaf; and only letting her eyes glow out from the hood, she glided from the reeds, and the prince turning round, saw a dark fairy figure by his side. He drew back, a little startled, and placed his hand on his sword, when Nymphalin circling round him, sang the following words:--
THE FAIRY'S REPROACH.
I.
By the glow-worm's lamp in the dewy brake; By the gossamer's airy net; By the shifting skin of the faithless snake, Oh, teach me to forget: For none, ah none Can teach so well that human spell As thou, false one!
II.
By the fairy dance on the greensward smooth; By the winds of the gentle west; By the loving stars, when their soft looks soothe The waves on their mother's breast, Teach me thy lore! By which, like withered flowers, The leaves of buried Hours Blossom no more!
III.
By the tent in the violet's bell; By the may on the scented bough; By the lone green isle where my sisters dwell; And thine own forgotten vow, Teach me to live, Nor feed on thoughts that pine For love so false as thine! Teach me thy lore, And one thou lov'st no more Will bless thee and forgive!
"Surely," said Fayzenheim, faltering, "surely I know that voice!"
And Nymphalin's cloak dropped off her shoulder. "My English fairy!" and Fayzenheim knelt beside her.
I wish you had seen the fay kneel, for you would have sworn it was so like a human lover that you would never have sneered at love afterwards. Love is so fairy-like a part of us, that even a fairy cannot make it differently from us,--that is to say, when we love truly.
There was great joy in the island that night among the elves. They conducted Nymphalin to their palace within the earth, and feasted her sumptuously; and Nip told their adventures with so much spirit that he enchanted the merry foreigners. But Fayzenheim talked apart to Nymphalin, and told her how he was lord of that island, and how he had been obliged to return to his dominions by the law of his tribe, which allowed him to be absent only a certain time in every year. "But, my queen, I always intended to revisit thee next spring."
"Thou need'st not have left us so abruptly," said Nymphalin, blushing.
"But do thou never leave me!" said the ardent fairy; "be mine, and let our nuptials be celebrated on these shores. Wouldst thou sigh for thy green island? No! for there the fairy altars are deserted, the faith is gone from the land; thou art among the last of an unhonoured and expiring race. Thy mortal poets are dumb, and Fancy, which was thy priestess, sleeps hushed in her last repose. New and hard creeds have succeeded to the fairy lore. Who steals through the starlit boughs on the nights of June to watch the roundels of thy tribe? The wheels of commerce, the din of trade, have silenced to mortal ear the music of thy subjects' harps! And the noisy habitations of men, harsher than their dreaming sires, are gathering round the dell and vale where thy co-mates linger: a few years, and where will be the green solitudes of England?"
The queen sighed, and the prince, perceiving that he was listened to, continued,--
"Who, in thy native shores, among the children of men, now claims the fairy's care? What cradle wouldst thou tend? On what maid wouldst thou shower thy rosy gifts? What barb wouldst thou haunt in his dreams? Poesy is fled the island, why shouldst thou linger behind? Time hath brought dull customs, that laugh at thy gentle being. Puck is buried in the harebell, he hath left no offspring, and none mourn for his loss; for night, which is the fairy season, is busy and garish as the day. What hearth is desolate after the curfew? What house bathed in stillness at the hour in which thy revels commence? Thine empire among men hath passed from thee, and thy race are vanishing from the crowded soil; for, despite our diviner nature, our existence is linked with man's. Their neglect is our disease, their forgetfulness our death. Leave then those dull, yet troubled scenes, that are closing round the fairy rings of thy native isle.