3 ERRANTRY


    There was a merry passenger,


    a messenger, a mariner:


    he built a gilded gondola


    to wander in, and had in her


    a load of yellow oranges


    and porridge for his provender;


    he perfumed her with marjoram


    and cardamom and lavender.


    He called the winds of argosies


    with cargoes in to carry him


    across the rivers seventeen


    that lay between to tarry him.


    He landed all in loneliness


    where stonily the pebbles on


    the running river Derrilyn


    goes merrily for ever on.


    He journeyed then through meadow-lands


    to Shadow-land that dreary lay,


    and under hill and over hill


    went roving still a weary way.


    He sat and sang a melody,


    his errantry a-tarrying;


    he begged a pretty butterfly


    that fluttered by to marry him.


    She scorned him and she scoffed at him,


    she laughed at him unpitying;


    so long he studied wizardry


    and sigaldry and smithying.


    He wove a tissue airy-thin


    to snare her in; to follow her


    he made him beetle-leather wing


    and feather wing of swallow-hair


    He caught her in bewilderment


    with filament of spider-thread;


    he made her soft pavilions


    of lilies, and a bridal bed


    of flowers and of thistle-down


    to nestle down and rest her in;


    and silken webs of filmy white


    and silver light he dressed her in.


    He threaded gems in necklaces,


    but recklessly she squandered them


    and fell to bitter quarrelling;


    then sorrowing he wandered on,


    and there he left her withering,


    as shivering he fled away;


    with windy weather following


    on swallow-wing he sped away.


    He passed the archipelagoes


    where yellow grows the marigold,


    where countless silver fountains are,


    and mountains are of fairy-gold.


    He took to war and foraying,


    a-harrying beyond the sea,


    and roaming over Belmarie


    and Thellamie and Fantasie.


    He made a shield and morion


    of coral and of ivory,


    a sword he made of emerald,


    and terrible his rivalry


    with elven-knights of Aerie


    and Faerie, with paladins


    that golden-haired and shining-eyed


    came riding by and challenged him.


    Of crystal was his habergeon,


    his scabbard of chalcedony;


    with silver tipped at plenilune


    his spear was hewn of ebony.


    His javelins were of malachite


    and stalactite - he brandished them,


    and went and fought the dragon-flies


    of Paradise, and vanquished them.


    He battled with the Dumbledors,


    the Hummerhorns, and Honeybees,


    and won the Golden Honeycomb;


    and running home on sunny seas


    in ship of leaves and gossamer


    with blossom for a canopy,


    he sat and sang, and furbished up


    and burnished up his panoply.


    He tarried for a little while


    in little isles that lonely lay,


    and found there naught but blowing grass;


    and so at last the only way


    he took, and turned, and coming home


    with honeycomb, to memory


    his message came, and errand too!


    In derring-do and glamoury


    he had forgot them, journeying


    and tourneying, a wanderer.


    So now he must depart again


    and start again bis gondola,


    for ever still a messenger,


    a passenger, a tarrier,


    a-roving as a feather does,


    a weather-driven mariner.