71. The Shadow People

OLD lame Bridget doesn’t hear

Fairy music in the grass

When the gloaming’s on the mere

And the shadow people pass:

Never hears their slow, grey feet

Coming from the village street

Just beyond the parson’s wall,

Where the clover globes are sweet

And the mushroom’s parasol

Opens in the moonlit rain.

Every night I hear them call

From their long and merry train.

Old lame Bridget says to me,

“It’s just your fancy, child.”

She cannot believe I see

Laughing faces in the wild,

Hands that twinkle in the sedge,

Where the finny minnows quiver,

Shaping on a blue wave’s ledge

Bubble foam to sail the river.

And the sunny hands to me

Beckon ever, beckon ever.

Oh! I would be wild and free

And with the shadow people be.