A breath on my forehead,
A laugh in my ear,
A shrill sound of fairy pipes
Blowing near and clear.
Away from home and kindred
And out of street and town,
I wandered with the fair folk
Towards the mountain brown.

They led me through the livelong day
By field and moorland wide,
With a pattering of wee feet
Running close beside.
And when I thought I saw them,
O nothing could I find,
Only a dry leaf on the road
Dancing in the wind.

The light was dead suddenly,
And hills shut me in:
The curlews cried in the grey dusk
Across the gorse and whin,
Between the wild waste of the moor
And the great lonely sky,
And the stream upon its cold stones
Sobbing wearily.