Lyrics by Frank DiGiacomo and Julian R. Pace, drawn from Cecil, a poem by Walter de la Mare, republished in America by Dover Publications in a collection called Songs of Childhood.

Photography by Sherry Eckstein

As he starts out for the city in hopes of restoring his family’s fortunes, Beauty’s Father bids her a loving farewell.

LYRICS    
Father:    
        May the kindly elves of our forest keep you well while I’m away.
 
        Ye little elves, who haunt sweet dells, where flowers with the dew commune,
        I pray you hush my child with windlike song.
 
        0 little elves, so white she lies, each eyelid gentler than the flow’r
        of the bramble, and her fleecy hair like smoke of gold.
        0 little elves, her hands and feet the angels muse upon, and God
        hath shut a glimpse of Paradise in each blue eye.
        0 little elves, her lovely body like a white flake of snow it is,
        drooping upon the pale green hood of the chill snowdrop.
 
        0 little elves, with elderflower, and with pimpernell, and the white hawthorn,
        sprinkle the journey of her dreams!
 
        And, little elves, call to her magically sweet,
        lest of her very tenderness she do forsake this rough brown earth
        and return to us no more.