Little princess Mee
Lovely was she
As in elven-song is told:
She had pearls in her hair
All threaded fair
Of glossamer shot with gold
Was her kerchief made,
And a silver braid
Of stars about her throat.
Of moth-web light
All moonlit-white
She wore a woven coat,
And round her kirtle
Was bound a girdle
Sewn with diamond dew.
She walked by day
Under mantle grey
And hood of clouded blue;
But she went by night
All glittering bright
under the starlit sky,
And her slippers frail
Of fishes’ mail
Flashed as she went by
To her dancing-pool,
and on mirror cool
Of windless water played.
As a mist of light
In whirling flight
A glint like glass she made
Wherever her feet
of sliver fleet
Flicked the dancing-floor
She looked on high
To the roofless sky,
And she looked to the shadowy shore;
Then round she went,
And her eyes she bent
And saw beneath her go
A Princess Shee
As fair as Mee:
They were dancing toe to toe
Shee was as light
As Mee, and was as bright;
But Shee was, strange to tell,
Hanging down
With starry crown
Into a bottomless well!
Her gleaming eyes
In great surprise
Looked up to the eye of Mee:
A marvellous thing
Head-down to swing
Above a starry sea!
Only their feet
Could ever meet;
For where the ways might lie
To find land
Where they do not stand
But hung down in sky
No one could tell
Nor learn in spell
In all the elven-lore
So still on her own
An elf alone
Dancing as before
With pearls in hair
And Kittle fair
And slippers frail
Of fishes’ mail went Mee:
Of fishes’ mail
And slippers frail
And Kittle fair
With pearls in hair went Shee!