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And in the politics of the last century, this English Hamlet, as we shall see, played a great part, or rather refused to play it. There were, then, two elements in the German influence; a sort of pretty playing with terror and a solemn recognition of terrorism. The first pointed to elfland, and the second to shall we say, Prussia.
'Go not back to Elfland; stay by my side under the Eildon tree, he pleaded. 'Nay, said the Queen of Elfland, 'should I stay with thee, a mortal, my fairness would fade as fades a leaf. But Thomas did not believe her, and, for he was a bold man, he drew near and kissed the rosy lips of the Elfland Queen. Alas, alas! no sooner had he kissed her than the lady fair changed into a tired old woman.
Where are there more divinely poetic lines than those, which will never be wearied with quotation, beginning, "A splendour falls"? What castle walls have stood in such a light of old romance, where in all poetry is there a sound wilder than that of those faint "horns of elfland"? Here is the remoteness, the beyond, the light delirium, not of disease but of more rapturous and delicate health, the closer secret of poetry.
The sea of crimson lacquer, with its floating moons of luminous colour this bow of prismed stone leaping to the weird isle crowned by the anomalous, aureate excrescence the half human batrachians-the elfland through which we had passed, with all its hidden wonders and terrors I felt the foundations of my cherished knowledge shaking. Was this all a dream?
As they worked in the flickering light, they stretched their distaffs at arm's length into the air like witches waving their wands; and with that the elfland picture was complete.
Never another harper in all the land had so great a gift as he. But at that no one marvelled, no one, that is to say, who knew that he had gained his gift in Elfland. When Thomas took his harp in his hand and touched the strings, a hush would fall upon those who heard, were they princes or were they peasants. For the magic of his music reached the hearts of all who stood around him.
There was moment's stillness . . . and then from the woods over the river came a multitude of fairy echoes, sweet, elusive, silvery, as if all the "horns of elfland" were blowing against the sunset. Anne and Diana exclaimed in delight. "Now laugh, Charlotta . . . laugh loudly."
His songs were sad and all who heard them wept, but he was not unhappy, for there is a certain pleasure in even a sad song. Yet always he longed for Elfland and the ways of the Little People, and the sound of the bell on the magic dog, whose chime brings forgetfulness of all sorrow.
These roofs made the houses look as if they had bald, shiny foreheads, with thick hair on top, and gave the windows a curiously wise expression. When at last we drove under a gateway across the road, and the color was suddenly extinguished as if a show of fireworks were over, we all felt as though we had come back to the everyday world after an excursion into elfland.
Thus it was that the doors of the old castle were flung wide, and noise and laughter filled the banquet-hall. Merry were the tales, loud the jests, bright the minstrel strains that night in the castle of Ercildoune. But when the feast was over Thomas himself arose, the harp he had brought from Elfland in his hand, and a hush fell upon the throng, upon lords and ladies, and upon rough armed men.
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