Then give it to the faithful stream

   (As bright and pure as love's first dream)

   That murmurs by,—'twill bring to me

   The messenger I give to thee.

   "But the maiden thou must bring

   Hither, to our elfin king,

   Ere three days are come and gone,

   When the moon hath kissed the stone

   By our fairy monarch's throne.

   Shouldst thou fail, or she refuse,

   Death is thine; or thou may'st choose

   With us to chase the moonbeams bright,

   Around the busy world. Good night!"

   He now felt something slipped into his hand.

   "Remember," said the voice, "when that shadow is on the pillar, thou must return."

   Immediately his bodily organs resumed their office, and the astonished miller was not long in regaining his own threshold.

   But he was a moody and an altered man. The dame could not help shuddering as she saw his ashen visage, and his eyes fixed and almost starting from their sockets. His cheeks were sunken, his head was bare, and his locks covered with rime, and with fragments from the boughs that intercepted his path.

   "Mercy on me!" cried she, lifting up her hands, "what terrible thing has happened? O Ralph, Ralph, thy silly gostering speeches, I do fear me, have had a sting in their 

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