Critical Notices [pp. 326-340]

SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER.
329
unequal length. The scene of the narrative, as we ascertain from the single line,
The moon looks down on old Cronest,
is principally in the vicinity of West Point on the Hudson. The plot is as follows. An Ouphe, one of the race
of Fairies, has "broken his vestal vow,"
He has loved an earthly maid
And left for her his woodland shade;
He has lain upon her lip of dew,
And sunned him in her eye of blue,
Fann'd her cheek with his wing of air,
Play'd with the ringlets of her hair,
And, nestling on her snowy breast,
Forgot the lily-king's behestin short, he has broken Fairy-law in becoming enamored
of a mortal. The result of this misdemeanor we could
not express so well as the poet, and will therefore make
use of the language put into the mouth of the FairyKing who reprimands the criminal.
Fairy! Fairy! list and mark,
Thou hast broke thine elfin chain,
Thy flame-wood lamp is quench'd and dark
And thy wings are dyed with a deadly stain.
The Ouphe being in this predicament, it has become necessary that his case and crime should be investigated by a jury of his fellows, and to this end the
"shadowy tribes of air" are summoned by the "sentry
elve" who has been awakened by the "wood-tick"are summoned we say to the "elfin-court" at midnight
to hear the doom of the Ctlprit Fay.
"Had a stain been found on the earthly fair" whose
blandishments so bewildered the litle Ouphe, his punishment had been severe indeed. In such case he would
have been (as we learn from the Fairy judge's exposition of the criminal code,)
Tied to the hornet's shardy wings;
Tossed on the pricks of nettles' stings;
Or seven long ages doomed to dwell
With the lazy worm in the walnut shell;
Or every night to writhe and bleed
Beneath the tread of the centipede;
Or bound in a cobweb dungeon dim,
His jailer a spider huge and grim,
Amid the carrion bodies to lie
Of the worm and the bug and the murdered fly
Fortunately, however, for the Culprit, his mistress is
proved to be of "sinless mind" and under such redeeming circumstances the sentence is, mildly, as follows
Thou shalt seek the beach of sand
Where the water bounds the elfin land,
Thou shalt watch the oozy brine
Till the sturgeon leaps in the bright moonshine,
Then dart the glistening arch below,
And catch a drop from his silver bow.
* * * * $ *
If the spray-bead gem be won
The stain of thy wing is washed away,
But another errand must be done
Ere thy crime be lost for aye;
Thy flame-wood lamp is quenched and dark,
Thou must re-illume its spark.
Mount thy steed and spur him high
To the heaven's blue canopy;
And when thou seest a shooting star
Follow it fast and follow it far The last faint spark of its burning train
Shall light the elfin lamp again."
Upon this sin, and upon this sentence, depends the
web of the narrative, which is now occupied with tlhe
elfin difficulties overcome by the Ouplie in washing
away the stain of his wing, and re-illuming his flamewood lamp. His soiled pinion having lost its power,
he is under the necessity of wending his way on foot
from the Elfin court upon Cronest to the river beach at
its base. His path is encumbered at every step with
"bog and briar," with "brook and mire," with "beds
of tangled fern," with "groves of nightshade," and with
the minor evils of ant and snake. Happily, however,
a spotted toad coming in sight, our adventurer jumps
upon her back, and "bridling her mouth with a silkweed twist" bounds merrily along
Till the mountain's magic verge is past
And the beach of sand is reached at last.
Alighting now from his "courser-toad" the Ouphe
folds his wings around his bosom, springs on a rock,
breathes a prayer, throws his arms above his head,
Then tosses a tiny curve in air
And plunges in the waters blue.
Here, however, a host of difficulties await him by
far too multitudinous to enumerate. We will content
ourselves with simply stating the names of his most
respectable assailants. These are the "spirits of the
waves" dressed in "snail-plate armor" and aided by
the "mailed shrimp," the "prickly prong," the "bloodred leech," the "stony star-fish," the "jellied quart,"
the "soldier crab," and the "lancing squab." But the
hopes of our hero are high, and his limbs are strong, so
He spreads his arms like the swallow's wing
And throws his feet with a frog-like fling.
All, however is to no purpose.
On his thigh the leech has fixed his hold,
The quarl's long arms are round him roll'd,
The prickly prong has pierced his skin,
And the squab has thrown his javelin,
The gritty star has rubb'd him raw,
And the crab has struck with his giant claw;
He bawls with rage, and he shrieks with pain
A-le strikes around but his blows are vain
So then,
He turns him round and flies amain
With hurry and dash to the beach again.
Arrived safely on land our Fairy friend now gathers
the dew from the "sorrel-leaf and henbane-bud" and
bathing therewith his wounds, finally ties them up with
cobweb. Thus recruited, he
treads the fatal shore
As fresh and vigorous as before.
At length espying a "purple-muscle shell" upon the
beach, he determines to use it as a boat, and thus evade
the animosity of the water-spirits whose powers extend
not above the wave. Making a "sculler's notch" in the
stern, and providing himself with an oar of the bootleblade, the Ouphe a second time ventures upon the deep.
His perils are now diminished, but still great. The imps
of the river heave the billows up before the prow of the
boat, dash the surges against her side, and strike against
her keel. The quarl uprears "his island-back" in her
path, and the scallop, floating in the rear of the vessel,
spatters it all over with water. Our adventurer however,
bails it out with the colen bell (which he has luckily provided for the purpose of catching the drop from the
silver bow of the sturgeon,) and keeping his little bark
warily trimmed, holds on his cotirsc undiscomfited.