Or, hovering, every wish prevent;
At eve light up the chimney-nook,
Lay there his glass within his book;
And that small chest of curious mould,
(Queen Mab's, perchance, in days of old,)
Tusk of elephant and gold;
Which, when a tale is long, dispenses
Its fragrant dust to drowsy senses.
In her who mourned not, when they missed her,
The old a child, the young a sister?
No more the orphan runs to take
From her loved hand the barley-cake.
No more the matron in the school
Expects her in the hour of rule,
To sit amid the elfin brood,
Praising the busy and the good.
The widow trims her hearth in vain.
She comes not-nor will come again.
Not now, his little lesson done,
With Frederic blowing bubbles in the sun;
Nor spinning by the fountain-side,
(Some story of the days of old,
Barbe Bleue or Chaperon Rouge half-told
To him who would not be denied ;)
Not now, to while an hour away,
Gone to the falls in Valombrè,
Where 'tis night at noon of day;
Nor wandering up and down the wood,
To all but her a solitude,