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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..46fbac8 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #65592 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/65592) diff --git a/old/65592-0.txt b/old/65592-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index fb39f75..0000000 --- a/old/65592-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,3807 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Flower of Old Japan, by Alfred Noyes - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The Flower of Old Japan - and Other Poems - -Author: Alfred Noyes - -Release Date: June 11, 2021 [eBook #65592] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Tim Lindell, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was - produced from images generously made available by The Internet - Archive/American Libraries.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FLOWER OF OLD JAPAN *** - - - - - THE FLOWER OF OLD JAPAN - - [Illustration] - - - - - THE FLOWER OF OLD - JAPAN - - AND OTHER POEMS - - BY - ALFRED NOYES - - New York - THE MACMILLAN COMPANY - LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD. - 1907 - - _All rights reserved_ - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1907, - BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. - - Set up and electrotyped. Published June, 1907. - - - Norwood Press - J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Co. - Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. - - - - - ‘O ciel! toute la Chine est par terre en morceaux! - Ce vase pâle et doux comme un reflet des eaux, - Couvert d’oiseaux, de fleurs, de fruits, et des mensonges - De ce vague idéal qui sort du bleu des songes, - Ce vase unique, étrange, impossible, engourdi, - Gardant sur lui le clair de lune en plein midi, - Qui paraissait vivant, où luisait une flamme, - Qui semblait presque un monstre et semblait presque une âme.’ - --VICTOR HUGO (_Le Pot Cassé_). - - - - - To - CAROL - A Little Maiden - of Miyako - - - - - PREFACE - - -It is a perilous adventure--the writing of a preface, however brief, to -one’s own poems. For one may be tempted to re-state matters that could -find their full elucidation only in the verses themselves. Tennyson once -remarked that poetry is like shot silk, glancing with many colours; and -any attempt to define its meanings is as great a mistake as the attempt -of nineteenth-century materialism to enclose the infinite universe in -its logical nut-shells. Through poetry alone, whether of deeds or words, -thought or colour, passion or marble, is it possible to approach the -Infinite, or as Blake did:-- - - ‘To see a world in a grain of sand, - A heaven in a wild flower; - Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand, - And Eternity in an hour.’ - -But this revelation is the sole end and object of all true art; and I -hope it may not be thought presumptuous to say here simply -that--whether the attempt be a success or a failure--it was especially -my own aim in the two following poems. If the feet of childhood are set -dancing in them, it was because as children we are best able to enter -into that Kingdom of Dreams which is also the only true, the only real, -Kingdom. The first tale, for instance, must not be taken to have any -real relation to Japan. It belongs--as the _Spectator_ put it--to the -kind of dreamland which an imaginative child might construct out of the -oddities of a willow-pattern plate, and it differs chiefly from -Wonderlands of the Lewis Carrol type in a certain seriousness behind its -fantasy. It is astonishing to me that these things require comment; but -undoubtedly they do. For, on the one hand, the first tale has been -praised enthusiastically as a vivid picture of Japan, and the author has -not only had to correspond with Tokyo on the subject, but was also -invited to meetings of the Japan Society in London! On the other hand, -because the child-voices are allowed to declare that Tusitala lies -asleep in that distant country of dreams, a prosaic English critic once -wrote a lengthy review in an important paper to point out my gross -ignorance of the fact that Stevenson was really buried in Samoa! The -tales are ‘such stuff as dreams are made on’; but--as a kinder critic -has remarked--‘we ourselves are made of that stuff.’ It is perhaps -because these poems are almost light enough for a nonsense-book that I -feel there is something in them more elemental, more essential, more -worthy of serious consideration, than the most ponderous philosophical -poem I could write. They are based on the fundamental and very simple -mystery of the universe--that anything, even a grain of sand, should -exist at all. If we could understand that, we could understand -everything! Set clear of all irrelevancies, that is the simple problem -that has been puzzling all the ages; and it is well sometimes to forget -our accumulated ‘knowledge’ and return to it in all its childish -_naïveté_. It is well to face that inconceivable miracle, that -fundamental impossibility which happens to have been possible, that -contradiction in terms, that fundamental paradox, for which we have at -best only a cruciform symbol, with its arms pointing in opposite -directions and postulating, at once, an infinite God. - -The inscription on the “Wisdom Looking-Glass”; the discovery by the -children that the self-limitation of their little wishes was necessary -not only to their own happiness, but to the harmony of the whole world; -the development of the same idea in the passages leading up to the -song--_What does it take to make a rose?_--where a _divine_ act of -loving self-limitation, an eternal self-sacrifice, an everlasting -passion of the Godhead, such as perhaps was shadowed forth on Calvary, -is found to be at the heart of the Universe, and to be--as it were--the -highest aspect of the Paradox aforesaid, the living secret and price of -our very existence; these things are only one twisted strand of the -‘shot silk’ out of which the two tales are woven. It is no new wisdom to -regard these things through the eyes of little children; and I -know--however insignificant they may be to others--these two tales -contain as deep and true things as I, personally, have the power to -express. I hope, therefore, that I may be pardoned, in these hurried -days, for pointing out that the two poems are not to be taken merely as -fairy-tales, but as an attempt to follow the careless and happy feet of -childhood back into the kingdom of those dreams which, as we said above, -are the sole reality worth living and dying for; those beautiful dreams, -or those fantastic jests--if any care to call them so--for which mankind -has endured so many triumphant martyrdoms that even amidst the rush and -roar of modern materialism they cannot be quite forgotten. - - ALFRED NOYES. - - - - -PERSONS OF THE TALE - - -OURSELVES. -THE TALL THIN MAN. -THE DWARF BEHIND THE TWISTED PEAR-TREE. -CREEPING SIN. -THE MAD MOONSHEE. -THE NAMELESS ONE. - -Pirates, Mandarins, Bonzes, Priests, Jugglers, Merchants, Ghastroi, -Weirdrians, etc. - - - - - PRELUDE - - - You that have known the wonder zone - Of islands far away; - You that have heard the dinky bird - And roamed in rich Cathay; - You that have sailed o’er unknown seas - To woods of Amfalula trees - Where craggy dragons play: - Oh, girl or woman, boy or man, - You’ve plucked the Flower of Old Japan! - - Do you remember the blue stream; - The bridge of pale bamboo; - The path that seemed a twisted dream - Where everything came true; - The purple cherry-trees; the house - With jutting eaves below the boughs; - The mandarins in blue, - With tiny, tapping, tilted toes, - And curious curved mustachios? - - _The road to Old Japan!_ you cry, - _And is it far or near?_ - Some never find it till they die; - Some find it everywhere; - The road where restful Time forgets - His weary thoughts and wild regrets - And calls the golden year - Back in a fairy dream to smile - On young and old a little while. - - Some seek it with a blazing sword, - And some with old blue plates; - Some with a miser’s golden hoard; - Some with a book of dates; - Some with a box of paints; a few - Whose loads of truth would ne’er pass through - The first, white, fairy gates; - And, oh, how shocked they are to find - That truths are false when left behind! - - Do you remember all the tales - That Tusitala told, - When first we plunged thro’ purple vales - In quest of buried gold? - Do you remember how he said - That if we fell and hurt our head - Our hearts must still be bold, - And we must never mind the pain - But rise up and go on again? - - Do you remember? yes; I know - You must remember still: - He left us, not so long ago, - Carolling with a will, - Because he knew that he should lie - Under the comfortable sky - Upon a lonely hill, - In Old Japan, when day was done; - “Dear Robert Louis Stevenson.” - - And there he knew that he should find - The hills that haunt us now; - The whaups that cried upon the wind - His heart remembered how; - And friends he loved and left, to roam - Far from the pleasant hearth of home, - Should touch his dreaming brow; - Where fishes fly and birds have fins, - And children teach the mandarins. - - Ah, let us follow, follow far - Beyond the purple seas; - Beyond the rosy foaming bar, - The coral reef, the trees, - The land of parrots, and the wild - That rolls before the fearless child - Its ancient mysteries: - Onward and onward, if we can, - To Old Japan--to Old Japan. - - - - - PART I - - EMBARKATION - - - When the firelight, red and clear, - Flutters in the black wet pane, - It is very good to hear - Howling winds and trotting rain: - It is very good indeed, - When the nights are dark and cold, - Near the friendly hearth to read - Tales of ghosts and buried gold. - - So with cosy toes and hands - We were dreaming, just like you; - Till we thought of palmy lands - Coloured like a cockatoo; - All in drowsy nursery nooks - Near the clutching fire we sat, - Searching quaint old story-books - Piled upon the furry mat. - - Something haunted us that night - Like a half-remembered name; - Worn old pages in that light - Seemed the same, yet not the same: - Curling in the pleasant heat - Smoothly as a shell-shaped fan, - O! they breathed and smelt so sweet - When we turned to Old Japan! - - Suddenly we thought we heard - Someone tapping on the wall, - Tapping, tapping like a bird, - Till a panel seemed to fall - Quietly; and a tall thin man - Stepped into the glimmering room, - And he held a little fan, - And he waved it in the gloom. - - Curious reds, and golds, and greens - Danced before our startled eyes, - Birds from painted Indian screens, - Beads, and shells, and dragon-flies; - Wings, and flowers, and scent, and flame, - Fans and fish and heliotrope; - Till the magic air became - Like a dream kaleidoscope. - - Then he told us of a land - Far across a fairy sea; - And he waved his thin white hand - Like a flower, melodiously; - While a red and blue macaw - Perched upon his pointed head, - And as in a dream, we saw - All the curious things he said. - - Tucked in tiny palanquins, - Magically swinging there, - Flowery-kirtled mandarins - Floated through the scented air; - Wandering dogs and prowling cats - Grinned at fish in painted lakes; - Cross-legged conjurers on mats - Fluted low to listening snakes. - - Fat black bonzes on the shore - Watched where singing, faint and far, - Boys in long blue garments bore - Roses in a golden jar. - While at carven dragon ships - Floating o’er that silent sea, - Squat-limbed gods with dreadful lips - Leered and smiled mysteriously. - - Like an idol, shrined alone, - Watched by secret oval eyes, - Where the ruby wishing-stone - Smouldering in the darkness lies, - Anyone that wanted things - Touched the jewel and they came: - We were wealthier than kings - If we could but do the same. - - Yes; we knew a hundred ways - We might use it if we could; - To be happy all our days - As an Indian in a wood; - No more daily lesson task, - No more sorrow, no more care; - So we thought that we would ask - If he’d kindly lead us there. - - Ah! but then he waved his fan, - And he vanished through the wall; - Yet as in a dream, we ran - Tumbling after, one and all; - Never pausing once to think, - Panting after him we sped; - For we saw his robe of pink - Floating backward as he fled. - - Down a secret passage deep, - Under roofs of spidery stairs, - Where the bat-winged nightmares creep, - And a sheeted phantom glares - Rushed we; ah! how strange it was - Where no human watcher stood; - Till we reached a gate of glass - Opening on a flowery wood. - - Where the rose-pink robe had flown, - Borne by swifter feet than ours, - On to Wonder-Wander town, - Through the wood of monstrous flowers; - Mailed in monstrous gold and blue - Dragon-flies like peacocks fled; - Butterflies like carpets, too, - Softly fluttered overhead. - - Down the valley, tip-a-toe, - Where the broad-limbed giants lie - Snoring, as when long ago - Jack on a bean-stalk scaled the sky; - Slowly, softly towards the town - Stole we past old dreams again, - Castles long since battered down, - Dungeons of forgotten pain. - - Noonday brooded on the wood, - Evening caught us ere we crept - Where a twisted pear-tree stood, - And a dwarf behind it slept; - Round his scraggy throat he wore, - Knotted tight, a scarlet scarf; - Timidly we watched him snore, - For he seemed a surly dwarf. - - Yet, he looked so very small, - He could hardly hurt us much; - We were nearly twice as tall, - So we woke him with a touch - Gently, and in tones polite, - Asked him to direct our path; - O! his wrinkled eyes grew bright - Green with ugly gnomish wrath. - - He seemed to choke, - And gruffly spoke, - “You’re lost: deny it, if you can! - You want to know - The way to go? - There’s no such place as Old Japan. - - “You want to seek-- - No, no, don’t speak! - You mean you want to steal a fan. - You want to see - The fields of tea? - They don’t grow tea in Old Japan. - - “In China, well - Perhaps you’d smell - The cherry bloom: that’s if you ran - A million miles - And jumped the stiles, - And never dreamed of Old Japan. - - “What, palanquins, - And mandarins? - And, what d’you say, a blue divan? - And what? Hee! hee! - You’ll never see - A pig-tailed head in Old Japan. - - “You’d take away - The ruby, hey? - I never heard of such a plan! - Upon my word - It’s quite absurd - There’s not a gem in Old Japan! - - “Oh, dear me, no! - You’d better go - Straight home again, my little man: - Ah, well, you’ll see - But don’t blame me; - I don’t believe in Old Japan.” - - Then, before we could obey, - O’er our startled heads he cast, - Spider-like, a webby grey - Net that held us prisoned fast; - How we screamed, he only grinned, - It was such a lonely place; - And he said we should be pinned - In his human beetle-case. - - Out he dragged a monstrous box - From a cave behind the tree! - It had four-and-twenty locks, - But he could not find the key, - And his face grew very pale - When a sudden voice began - Drawing nearer through the vale, - Singing songs of Old Japan. - - - - - SONG - - - _Satin sails in a crimson dawn_ - _Over the silky silver sea;_ - _Purple veils of the dark withdrawn;_ - _Heavens of pearl and porphyry;_ - _Purple and white in the morning light_ - _Over the water the town we knew,_ - _In tiny state, like a willow-plate,_ - _Shone, and behind it the hills were blue._ - - _There, we remembered, the shadows pass_ - _All day long like dreams in the night;_ - _There, in the meadows of dim blue grass,_ - _Crimson daisies are ringed with white;_ - _There the roses flutter their petals,_ - _Over the meadows they take their flight,_ - _There the moth that sleepily settles_ - _Turns to a flower in the warm soft light._ - - _There when the sunset colours the streets_ - _Everyone buys at wonderful stalls_ - _Toys and chocolates, guns and sweets,_ - _Ivory pistols, and Persian shawls:_ - _Everyone’s pockets are crammed with gold;_ - _Nobody’s heart is worn with care,_ - _Nobody ever grows tired and old,_ - _And nobody calls you “Baby” there._ - - _There with a hat like a round white dish_ - _Upside down on each pig-tailed head,_ - _Jugglers offer you snakes and fish,_ - _Dreams and dragons and gingerbread;_ - _Beautiful books with marvellous pictures,_ - _Painted pirates and streaming gore,_ - _And everyone reads, without any strictures,_ - _Tales he remembers for evermore._ - - _There when the dim blue daylight lingers_ - _Listening, and the West grows holy,_ - _Singers crouch with their long white fingers_ - _Floating over the zithern slowly:_ - _Paper lamps with a peachy bloom_ - _Burn above on the dim blue bough,_ - _While the zitherns gild the gloom_ - _With curious music! I hear it now!_ - - _Now_: and at that mighty word - Holding out his magic fan, - Through the waving flowers appeared, - Suddenly, the tall thin man: - And we saw the crumpled dwarf - Trying to hide behind the tree, - But his knotted scarlet scarf - Made him very plain to see. - - Like a soft and smoky cloud - Passed the webby net away; - While its owner squealing loud - Down behind the pear-tree lay; - For the tall thin man came near, - And his words were dark and gruff, - And he swung the dwarf in the air - By his long and scraggy scruff. - - There he kickled whimpering. - But our rescuer touched the box, - Open with a sudden spring - Clashed the four-and-twenty locks; - Then he crammed the dwarf inside, - And the locks all clattered tight: - Four-and-twenty times he tried - Whether they were fastened right. - - Ah, he led us on our road, - Showed us Wonder-Wander town; - Then he fled: behind him flowed - Once again the rose-pink gown: - Down the long deserted street, - All the windows winked like eyes, - And our little trotting feet - Echoed to the starry skies. - - Low and long for evermore - Where the Wonder-Wander sea - Whispers to the wistful shore - Purple songs of mystery, - Down the shadowy quay we came-- - Though it hides behind the hill - You will find it just the same - And the seamen singing still. - - There we chose a ship of pearl, - And her milky silken sail - Seemed by magic to unfurl, - Puffed before a fairy gale; - Shimmering o’er the purple deep, - Out across the silvery bar, - Softly as the wings of sleep - Sailed we towards the morning star. - - Over us the skies were dark, - Yet we never needed light; - Softly shone our tiny bark - Gliding through the solemn night; - Softly bright our moony gleam, - Glimmered o’er the glistening waves, - Like a cold sea-maiden’s dream - Globed in twilit ocean caves. - - So all night our shallop passed - Many a haunt of old desire, - Blurs of savage blossom massed - Red above a pirate-fire; - Huts that gloomed and glanced among - Fruitage dipping in the blue; - Songs the sirens never sung, - Shores Ulysses never knew. - - All our fairy rigging shone - Richly as a rainbow seen - Where the moonlight floats upon - Gossamers of gold and green: - All the tiny spars were bright; - Beaten gold the bowsprit was; - But our pilot was the night, - And our chart a looking-glass. - - - - - PART II - - THE ARRIVAL - - - With rosy finger-tips the Dawn - Drew back the silver veils, - Till lilac shimmered into lawn - Above the satin sails; - And o’er the waters, white and wan, - In tiny patterned state, - We saw the streets of Old Japan - Shine, like a willow plate. - - O, many a milk-white pigeon roams - The purple cherry crops, - The mottled miles of pearly domes, - And blue pagoda tops, - The river with its golden canes - And dark piratic dhows, - To where beyond the twisting vanes - The burning mountain glows. - - A snow-peak in the silver skies - Beyond that magic world, - We saw the great volcano rise - With incense o’er it curled, - Whose tiny thread of rose and blue - Has risen since time began, - Before the first enchanter knew - The peak of Old Japan. - - Nobody watched us quietly steer - The pinnace to the painted pier, - Except one pig-tailed mandarin, - Who sat upon a chest of tea - Pretending not to hear or see!... - His hands were very long and thin, - His face was very broad and white; - And O, it was a fearful sight - To see him sit alone and grin! - - His grin was very sleek and sly: - Timidly we passed him by! - He did not seem at all to care: - So, thinking we were safely past, - We ventured to look back at last. - O, dreadful blank!--_He was not there!_ - He must have hid behind his chest: - We did not stay to see the rest. - - But, as in reckless haste we ran, - We came upon the tall thin man, - Who called to us and waved his fan, - And offered us his palanquin: - He said we must not go alone - To seek the ruby wishing-stone, - Because the white-faced mandarin - Would dog our steps for many a mile, - And sit upon each purple stile - Before we came to it, and smile - And smile; his name was Creeping Sin. - - He played with children’s beating hearts, - And stuck them full of poisoned darts - And long green thorns that stabbed and stung: - He’d watch until we tried to speak, - Then thrust inside his pasty cheek - His long, white, slimy tongue: - And smile at everything we said; - And sometimes pat us on the head, - And say that we were very young: - He was a cousin of the man - Who said that there was no Japan. - - And night and day this Creeping Sin - Would follow the path of the palanquin; - Yet if we still were fain to touch - The ruby, we must have no fear, - Whatever we might see or hear, - And the tall thin man would take us there; - He did not fear that Sly One much, - Except perhaps on a moonless night, - Nor even then if the stars were bright. - - So, in the yellow palankeen - We swung along in state between - Twinkling domes of gold and green - Through the rich bazaar, - Where the cross-legged merchants sat, - Old and almond-eyed and fat, - Each upon a gorgeous mat, - Each in a cymar; - Each in crimson samite breeches, - Watching his barbaric riches. - - Cherry blossom breathing sweet - Whispered o’er the dim blue street - Where with fierce uncertain feet - Tawny pirates walk: - All in belts and baggy blouses, - Out of dreadful opium houses, - Out of dens where Death carouses, - Horribly they stalk; - Girt with ataghan and dagger, - Right across the road they swagger. - - And where the cherry orchards blow, - We saw the maids of Miyako, - Swaying softly to and fro - Through the dimness of the dance: - Like sweet thoughts that shine through dreams - They glided, wreathing rosy gleams, - With stately sounds of silken streams, - And many a slim kohl-lidded glance; - Then fluttered with tiny rose-bud feet - To a soft _frou-frou_ and a rhythmic beat - As the music shimmered, pursuit, retreat, - “Hands across, retire, advance!” - And again it changed and the glimmering throng - Faded into a distant song. - - - - - SONG - - - _The maidens of Miyako_ - _Dance in the sunset hours,_ - _Deep in the sunset glow,_ - _Under the cherry flowers._ - - _With dreamy hands of pearl_ - _Floating like butterflies,_ - _Dimly the dancers whirl_ - _As the rose light dies;_ - - _And their floating gowns, their hair_ - _Upbound with curious pins,_ - _Fade thro’ the darkening air_ - _With the dancing mandarins._ - - And then, as we went, the tall thin man - Explained the manners of Old Japan; - If you pitied a thing, you pretended to sneer; - Yet if you were glad you ran to buy - A captive pigeon and let it fly; - And, if you were sad, you took a spear - To wound yourself, for fear your pain - Should quietly grow less again. - - And, again he said, if we wished to find - The mystic City that enshrined - The stone so few on earth had found, - We must be very brave; it lay - A hundred haunted leagues away, - Past many a griffon-guarded ground, - In depths of dark and curious art, - Where passion-flowers enfold apart - The Temple of the Flaming Heart, - The City of the Secret Wound. - - About the fragrant fall of day - We saw beside the twisted way - A blue-domed tea-house, bossed with gold; - Hungry and thirsty we entered in: - How should we know what Creeping Sin - Had breathed in that Emperor’s ear who sold - His own dumb soul for an evil jewel - To the earth-gods, blind and ugly and cruel?... - We drank sweet tea as his tale was told, - In a garden of blue chrysanthemums, - While a drowsy swarming of gongs and drums - Out of the sunset dreamily rolled. - - But, as the murmur nearer drew, - A fat black bonze, in a robe of blue, - Suddenly at the gate appeared; - And close behind, with that evil grin, - _Was it Creeping Sin, was it Creeping Sin?_ - The bonze looked quietly down and sneered. - Our guide! Was he sleeping? We could not wake him, - However we tried to pinch and shake him! - - Nearer, nearer the tumult came, - Till, as a glare of sound and flame, - Blind from a terrible furnace door - Blares, or the mouth of a dragon, blazed - The seething gateway: deaf and dazed - With the clanging and the wild uproar - We stood; while a thousand oval eyes - Gapped our fear with a sick surmise. - - Then, as the dead sea parted asunder, - The clamour clove with a sound of thunder - In two great billows; and all was quiet. - Gaunt and black was the palankeen - That came in dreadful state between - The frozen waves of the wild-eyed riot - Curling back from the breathless track - Of the Nameless One who is never seen: - The close drawn curtains were thick and black; - But wizen and white was the tall thin man - As he rose in his sleep: - His eyes were closed, his lips were wan, - He crouched like a leopard that dares not leap. - - The bearers halted: the tall thin man, - Fearfully dreaming, waved his fan, - With wizard fingers, to and fro; - While, with a whimper of evil glee, - The Nameless Emperor’s mad Moonshee - Stepped in front of us: dark and slow - Were the words of the doom that he dared not name; - But, over the ground, as he spoke, there came - Tiny circles of soft blue flame; - Like ghosts of flowers they began to glow, - And flow like a moonlit brook between - Our feet and the terrible palankeen. - - But the Moonshee wrinkled his long thin eyes, - And sneered, “Have you stolen the strength of the skies? - Then pour before us a stream of pearl! - Give us the pearl and the gold we know, - And our hearts will be softened and let you go; - But these are toys for a foolish girl-- - These vanishing blossoms--what are they worth? - They are not so heavy as dust and earth: - Pour before us a stream of pearl!” - - Then, with a wild strange laugh, our guide - Stretched his arms to the West and cried - Once, and a song came over the sea; - And all the blossoms of moon-soft fire - Woke and breathed as a wind-swept lyre, - And the garden surged into harmony; - Till it seemed that the soul of the whole world sung, - And every petal became a tongue - To tell the thoughts of Eternity. - - But the Moonshee lifted his painted brows - And stared at the gold on the blue tea-house: - “Can you clothe your body with dreams?” he sneered; - “If you taught us the truths that we always know - Our heart might be softened and let you go: - Can you tell us the length of a monkey’s beard, - Or the weight of the gems on the Emperor’s fan, - Or the number of parrots in Old Japan?” - And again, with a wild strange laugh, our guide - Looked at him; and he shrunk aside, - Shrivelling like a flame-touched leaf; - For the red-cross blossoms of soft blue fire - Were growing and fluttering higher and higher, - Shaking their petals out, sheaf by sheaf, - Till with disks like shields and stems like towers - Burned the host of the passion-flowers -... Had the Moonshee flown like a midnight thief? -... Yet a thing like a monkey, shrivelled and black, - Chattered and danced as they forced him back. - - As the coward chatters for empty pride, - In the face of a foe that he cannot but fear, - It chattered and leapt from side to side, - And its voice rang strangely upon the ear. - As the cry of a wizard that dares not own - Another’s brighter and mightier throne; - As the wrath of a fool that rails aloud - On the fire that burnt him; the brazen bray - Clamoured and sang o’er the gaping crowd, - And flapped like a gabbling goose away. - - - - - THE CRY OF THE MAD MOONSHEE - - _If the blossoms were beans, - I should know what it means-- - This blaze, which I certainly cannot endure; - It is evil, too, - For its colour is blue, - And the sense of the matter is quite obscure. - Celestial truth - Is the food of youth; - But the music was dark as a moonless night._ - _The facts in the song - Were all of them wrong, - And there was not a single sum done right; - Tho’ a metaphysician amongst the crowd, - In a voice that was notably deep and loud, - Repeated, as fast as he was able, - The whole of the multiplication table._ - - So the cry flapped off as a wild goose flies, - And the stars came out in the trembling skies, - And ever the mystic glory grew - In the garden of blue chrysanthemums, - Till there came a rumble of distant drums; - And the multitude suddenly turned and flew. -... A dead ape lay where their feet had been ... - And we called for the yellow palankeen, - And the flowers divided and let us through. - The black-barred moon was large and low - When we came to the Forest of Ancient Woe; - And over our heads the stars were bright. - But through the forest the path we travelled - Its phosphorescent aisle unravelled - In one thin ribbon of dwindling light: - And twice and thrice on the fainting track - We paused to listen. The moon grew black, - But the coolies’ faces glimmered white, - As the wild woods echoed in dreadful chorus - A laugh that came horribly hopping o’er us - Like monstrous frogs thro’ the murky night. - - Then the tall thin man as we swung along - Sang us an old enchanted song - That lightened our hearts of their fearful load. - But, e’en as the moonlit air grew sweet, - We heard the pad of stealthy feet - Dogging us down the thin white road; - And the song grew weary again and harsh, - And the black trees dripped like the fringe of a marsh, - And a laugh crept out like a shadowy toad; - And we knew it was neither ghoul nor djinn: - _It was Creeping Sin! It was Creeping Sin!_ - - But we came to a bend, and the white moon glowed - Like a gate at the end of the narrowing road - Far away; and on either hand, - As guards of a path to the heart’s desire, - The strange tall blossoms of soft blue fire - Stretched away thro’ that unknown land, - League on league with their dwindling lane - Down to the large low moon; and again - There shimmered around us that mystical strain, - In a tongue that it seemed we could understand. - - - - - SONG - - - _Hold by right and rule by fear_ - _Till the slowly broadening sphere_ - _Melting through the skies above_ - _Merge into the sphere of love._ - - _Hold by might until you find_ - _Might is powerless o’er the mind:_ - _Hold by Truth until you see,_ - _Though they bow before the wind,_ - _Its towers can mock at liberty._ - - _Time, the seneschal, is blind;_ - _Time is blind: and what are we?_ - _Captives of Infinity,_ - _Claiming through Truth’s prison bars_ - _Kinship with the wandering stars._ - O, who could tell the wild weird sights - We saw in all the days and nights - We travelled through those forests old. - We saw the griffons on white cliffs, - Among fantastic hieroglyphs, - Guarding enormous heaps of gold: - We saw the Ghastroi--curious men - Who dwell, like tigers, in a den, - And howl whene’er the moon is cold; - They stripe themselves with red and black - And ride upon the yellow Yak. - - Their dens are always ankle-deep - With twisted knives, and in their sleep - They often cut themselves; they say - That if you wish to live in peace - The surest way is not to cease - Collecting knives; and never a day - Can pass, unless they buy a few; - And as their enemies buy them too - They all avert the impending fray, - And starve their children and their wives - To buy the necessary knives. - - * * * * * - - The forest leapt with shadowy shapes - As we came to the great black Tower of Apes: - But we gave them purple figs and grapes - In alabaster amphoras: - We gave them curious kinds of fruit - With betel nuts and orris-root, - And then they let us pass: - And when we reached the Tower of Snakes - We gave them soft white honey-cakes, - And warm sweet milk in bowls of brass: - And on the hundredth eve we found - The City of the Secret Wound. - - We saw the mystic blossoms blow - Round the City, far below; - Faintly in the sunset glow - We saw the soft blue glory flow - O’er many a golden garden gate: - And o’er the tiny dark green seas - Of tamarisks and tulip-trees, - Domes like golden oranges - Dream aloft elate. - - And clearer, clearer as we went, - We heard from tower and battlement - A whisper, like a warning, sent - From watchers out of sight; - And clearer, brighter, as we drew - Close to the walls, we saw the blue - Flashing of plumes where peacocks flew - Thro’ zones of pearly light. - - On either side, a fat black bonze - Guarded the gates of red-wrought bronze, - Blazoned with blue sea-dragons - And mouths of yawning flame; - Down the road of dusty red, - Though their brown feet ached and bled, - Our coolies went with joyful tread: - Like living fans the gates outspread - And opened as we came. - - - - - PART III - - THE MYSTIC RUBY - - - The white moon dawned; the sunset died; - And stars were trembling when we spied - The rose-red temple of our dreams: - Its lamp-lit gardens glimmered cool - With many an onyx-paven pool, - Amid soft sounds of flowing streams; - Where star-shine shimmered through the white - Tall fountain-shafts of crystal light - In ever changing rainbow-gleams. - - Priests in flowing yellow robes - Glided under rosy globes; - Through the green pomegranate boughs - Moonbeams poured their coloured rain; - Roofs of sea-green porcelain - Jutted o’er the rose-red house; - Bells were hung beneath its eaves; - Every wind that stirred the leaves - Tinkled as tired water does. - - The temple had a low broad base - Of black bright marble; all its face - Was marble bright in rosy bloom; - And where two sea-green pillars rose - Deep in the flower-soft eave-shadows - We saw, thro’ richly sparkling gloom, - Wrought in marvellous years of old - With bulls and peacocks bossed in gold, - The doors of powdered lacquer loom. - - Quietly then the tall thin man, - Holding his turquoise-tinted fan, - Alighted from the palanquin; - We followed: never painter dreamed - Of how that dark rich temple gleamed - With gules of jewelled gloom within; - And as we wondered near the door - A priest came o’er the polished floor - In sandals of soft serpent-skin; - His mitre shimmered bright and blue - With pigeon’s breast-plumes. When he knew - Our quest he stroked his broad white chin, - And looked at us with slanting eyes - And smiled; then through his deep disguise - _We knew him! It was Creeping Sin!_ - - But cunningly he bowed his head - Down on his gilded breast and said - _Come_: and he led us through the dusk - Of passages whose painted walls - Gleamed with dark old festivals; - Till where the gloom grew sweet with musk - And incense, through a door of amber - We came into a high-arched chamber. - - There on a throne of jasper sat - A monstrous idol, black and fat; - Thick rose-oil dropped upon its head: - Drop by drop, heavy and sweet, - Trickled down to its ebon feet - Whereon the blood of goats was shed, - And smeared around its perfumed knees - In savage midnight mysteries. - - It wore about its bulging waist - A belt of dark green bronze enchased - With big, soft, cloudy pearls; its wrists - Were clasped about with moony gems - Gathered from dead kings’ diadems; - Its throat was ringed with amethysts, - And in its awful hand it held - A softly smouldering emerald. - - Silkily murmured Creeping Sin, - “This is the stone you wished to win!” - “White Snake,” replied the tall thin man, - “Show us the Ruby Stone, or I - Will slay thee with my hands.” The sly - Long eyelids of the priest began - To slant aside; and then once more - He led us through the fragrant door. - - And now along the passage walls - Were painted hideous animals, - With hooded eyes and cloven stings: - In the incense that like shadowy hair - Streamed over them they seemed to stir - Their craggy claws and crooked wings. - At last we saw strange moon-wreaths curl - Around a deep, soft porch of pearl. - - O, what enchanter wove in dreams - That chapel wild with shadowy gleams - And prismy colours of the moon? - Shrined like a rainbow in a mist - Of flowers, the fretted amethyst - Arches rose to a mystic tune; - And never mortal art inlaid - Those cloudy floors of sea-soft jade. - - There, in the midst, an idol rose - White as the silent starlit snows - On lonely Himalayan heights: - Over its head the spikenard spilled - Down to its feet, with myrrh distilled - In distant, odorous Indian nights: - It held before its ivory face - A flaming yellow chrysoprase. - - O, silkily murmured Creeping Sin, - “This is the stone you wished to win.” - But in his ear the tall thin man - _Whispered with slow, strange lips_--we knew - Not what, but Creeping Sin went blue - With fear; again his eyes began - To slant aside; then through the porch - He passed, and lit a tall, brown torch. - - Down a corridor dark as death, - With beating hearts and bated breath - We hurried; far away we heard - A dreadful hissing, fierce as fire - When rain begins to quench a pyre; - And where the smoky torch-light flared - Strange vermin beat their bat-like wings, - And the wet walls dropped with slimy things. - - And darker, darker, wound the way, - Beyond all gleams of night and day, - And still that hideous hissing grew - Louder and louder on our ears, - And tortured us with eyeless fears; - Then suddenly the gloom turned blue, - And, in the wall, a rough rock cave - Gaped, like a phosphorescent grave. - - And from the purple mist within - There came a wild tumultuous din - Of snakes that reared their heads and - hissed - As if a witch’s cauldron boiled; - All round the door great serpents coiled, - With eyes of glowing amethyst, - Whose fierce blue flames began to slide - Like shooting stars from side to side. - - Ah! with a sickly gasping grin - And quivering eyelids, Creeping Sin - Stole to the cave; but, suddenly, - As through its glimmering mouth he passed, - The serpents flashed and gripped him fast: - He wriggled and gave one awful cry, - Then all at once the cave was cleared; - The snakes with their victim had disappeared. - - And fearlessly the tall thin man - Opened his turquoise-tinted fan - And entered; and the mists grew bright, - And we saw that the cave was a diamond hall - Lit with lamps for a festival. - A myriad globes of coloured light - Went gliding deep in its massy sides, - Like the shimmering moons in the glassy tides - Where a sea-king’s palace enchants the night. - - Gliding and flowing, a glory and wonder, - Through each other, and over, and under, - The lucent orbs of green and gold, - Bright with sorrow or soft with sleep, - In music through the glimmering deep, - Over their secret axles rolled, - And circled by the murmuring spheres - We saw in a frame of frozen tears - A mirror that made the blood run cold. - - For, when we came to it, we found - It imaged everything around - Except the face that gazed in it; - And where the mirrored face should be - A heart-shaped Ruby fierily - Smouldered; and round the frame was writ, - _Mystery: Time and Tide shall pass, - I am the Wisdom Looking-Glass._ - _This is the Ruby none can touch: - Many have loved it overmuch; - Its fathomless fires flutter and sigh, - Being as images of the flame - That shall make earth and heaven the same - When the fire of the end reddens the sky, - And the world consumes like a burning pall, - Till where there is nothing, there is all._ - - So we looked up at the tall thin man - And we saw that his face grew sad and wan: - Tears were glistening in his eyes: - At last, with a breaking sob, he bent - His head upon his breast and went - Swiftly away! With dreadful cries - We rushed to the softly glimmering door - And stared at the hideous corridor - But his robe was gone as a dream that flies: - Back to the glass in terror we came, - And stared at the writing round the frame. - - We could not understand one word: - And suddenly we thought we heard - The hissing of the snakes again: - How could we front them all alone? - O, madly we clutched at the mirrored stone - And wished we were back on the flowery plain: - And swifter than thought and swift as fear - The whole world flashed, and behold we were there. - - Yes; there was the port of Old Japan, - With its twisted patterns, white and wan, - Shining like a mottled fan - Spread by the blue sea, faint and far; - And far away we heard once more - A sound of singing on the shore, - Where boys in blue kimonos bore - Roses in a golden jar: - And we heard, where the cherry orchards blow, - The serpent-charmers fluting low, - And the song of the maidens of Miyako. - - And at our feet unbroken lay - The glass that had whirled us thither away: - And in the grass, among the flowers - We sat and wished all sorts of things: - O, we were wealthier than kings! - We ruled the world for several hours! - And then, it seemed, we knew not why, - All the daisies began to die. - - We wished them alive again; but soon - The trees all fled up towards the moon - Like peacocks through the sunlit air: - And the butterflies flapped into silver fish; - And each wish spoiled another wish; - Till we threw the glass down in despair; - For, getting whatever you want to get, - Is like drinking tea from a fishing net. - - At last we thought we’d wish once more - That all should be as it was before; - And then we’d shatter the glass, if we could; - But just as the world grew right again, - We heard a wanderer out on the plain - Singing what none of us understood; - Yet we thought that the world grew thrice more sweet - And the meadows were blossoming under his feet. - - And we felt a grand and beautiful fear, - For we knew that a marvellous thought drew near; - So we kept the glass for a little while: - And the skies grew deeper and twice as bright, - And the seas grew soft as a flower of light, - And the meadows rippled from stile to stile; - And memories danced in a musical throng - Thro’ the blossom that scented the wonderful song. - - - - - SONG - - - _We sailed across the silver seas - And saw the sea-blue bowers, - We saw the purple cherry trees, - And all the foreign flowers, - We travelled in a palanquin - Beyond the caravan, - And yet our hearts had never seen - The Flower of Old Japan._ - - _The Flower above all other flowers, - The Flower that never dies;_ - _Before whose throne the scented hours - Offer their sacrifice; - The Flower that here on earth below - Reveals the heavenly plan; - But only little children know - The Flower of Old Japan._ - - There, in the dim blue flowery plain - We wished with the magic glass again - To go to the Flower of the song’s desire: - And o’er us the whole of the soft blue sky - Flashed like fire as the world went by, - And far beneath us the sea like fire - Flashed in one swift blue brilliant stream, - And the journey was done, like a change in a dream. - - - - - PART IV - - THE END OF THE QUEST - - - Like the dawn upon a dream - Slowly through the scented gloom - Crept once more the ruddy gleam - O’er the friendly nursery room. - There, before our waking eyes, - Large and ghostly, white and dim, - Dreamed the Flower that never dies, - Opening wide its rosy rim. - - Spreading like a ghostly fan, - Petals white as porcelain, - There the Flower of Old Japan - Told us we were home again; - For a soft and curious light - Suddenly was o’er it shed, - And we saw it was a white - English daisy, ringed with red. - - Slowly, as a wavering mist - Waned the wonder out of sight, - To a sigh of amethyst, - To a wraith of scented light. - Flower and magic glass had gone; - Near the clutching fire we sat - Dreaming, dreaming, all alone, - Each upon a furry mat. - - While the firelight, red and clear, - Fluttered in the black wet pane, - It was very good to hear - Howling winds and trotting rain. - For we found at last we knew - More than all our fancy planned, - All the fairy tales were true, - And home the heart of fairyland. - - - - - EPILOGUE - - - Carol, every violet has - Heaven for a looking-glass! - - Every little valley lies - Under many-clouded skies; - Every little cottage stands - Girt about with boundless lands; - Every little glimmering pond - Claims the mighty shores beyond; - Shores no seaman ever hailed, - Seas no ship has ever sailed. - - All the shores when day is done - Fade into the setting sun, - So the story tries to teach - More than can be told in speech. - - Beauty is a fading flower, - Truth is but a wizard’s tower, - Where a solemn death-bell tolls, - And a forest round it rolls. - - We have come by curious ways - To the Light that holds the days; - We have sought in haunts of fear - For that all-enfolding sphere: - And lo! it was not far, but near. - - We have found, O foolish-fond, - The shore that has no shore beyond. - - Deep in every heart it lies - With its untranscended skies; - For what heaven should bend above - Hearts that own the heaven of love? - - Carol, Carol, we have come - Back to heaven, back to home. - - - - - FOREST OF WILD THYME - - To - HELEN, ROSIE - and - BEATRIX - - - - - APOLOGIA - - - Critics, you have been so kind, - I would not have you think me blind - To all the wisdom that you preach; - Yet before I strictlier run - In straiter lines of chiselled speech, - Give me one more hour, just one - Hour to hunt the fairy gleam - That flutters through this childish dream. - - It mocks me as it flies, I know: - All too soon the gleam will go; - Yet I love it and shall love - My dream that brooks no narrower bars - Than bind the darkening heavens above, - My Jack o’Lanthorn of the stars: - Then, I’ll follow it no more, - I’ll light the lamp: I’ll close the door. - - - - - PRELUDE - - - Hush! if you remember how we sailed to old Japan, - Peterkin was with us then, our little brother Peterkin! - Now we’ve lost him, so they say: I think the tall thin man - Must have come and touched him with his curious twinkling fan - And taken him away again, our merry little Peterkin; - He’ll be frightened all alone; we’ll find him if we can; - Come and look for Peterkin, poor little Peterkin. - - No one would believe us if we told them what we know, - Or they wouldn’t grieve for Peterkin, merry little Peterkin; - If they’d only watched us roaming through the streets of Miyako, - And travelling in a palanquin where parents never go, - And seen the golden gardens where we wandered once with Peterkin, - And smelt the purple orchards where the cherry-blossoms blow, - They wouldn’t mourn for Peterkin, merry little Peterkin. - - Put away your muskets, lay aside the drum, - Hang it by the wooden sword we made for little Peterkin! - - He was once our trumpeter, now his bugle’s dumb, - Pile your arms beneath it, for the owlet light is come, - We’ll wander through the roses where we marched of old with Peterkin, - We’ll search the summer sunset where the Hybla beehives hum, - And--if we meet a fairy there--we’ll ask for news of Peterkin. - - He was once our cabin-boy and cooked the sweets for tea; - And O, we’ve sailed around the world with laughing little Peterkin; - From nursery floor to pantry door we’ve roamed the mighty sea, - And come to port below the stairs in distant Caribee, - But wheresoe’er we sailed we took our little lubber Peterkin, - Because his wide grey eyes believed much more than ours could see, - And so we liked our Peterkin, our trusty little Peterkin. - - Peterkin, Peterkin, I think if you came back - The captain of our host to-day should be the bugler Peterkin, - And he should lead our smugglers up that steep and narrow track, - A band of noble brigands, bearing each a mighty pack - Crammed with lace and jewels to the secret cave of Peterkin, - And he should wear the biggest boots and make his pistol crack,-- - The Spanish cloak, the velvet mask, we’d give them all to Peterkin. - Come, my brother pirates, I am tired of play; - Come and look for Peterkin, little brother Peterkin, - Our merry little comrade that the fairies took away, - For people think we’ve lost him, and when we come to say - Our good-night prayers to mother, if we pray for little Peterkin - Her eyes are very sorrowful, she turns her head away. - Come and look for Peterkin, merry little Peterkin. - - God bless little Peterkin, wherever he may be! - Come and look for Peterkin, lonely little Peterkin: - I wonder if they’ve taken him again across the sea - From the town of Wonder-Wander and the Amfalula tree - To the land of many marvels where we roamed of old with Peterkin, - The land of blue pagodas and the flowery fields of tea! - Come and look for Peterkin, poor little Peterkin. - - - - - PART I - - THE SPLENDID SECRET - - - Now father stood engaged in talk - With mother on that narrow walk - Between the laurels (where we play - At Red-skins lurking for their prey) - And the grey old wall of roses - Where the Persian kitten dozes - And the sunlight sleeps upon - Crannies of the crumbling stone - --So hot it is you scarce can bear - Your naked hand upon it there, - Though there luxuriating in heat - With a slow and gorgeous beat - White-winged currant-moths display - Their spots of black and gold all day.-- - Well, since we greatly wished to know - Whether we too might some day go - Where little Peterkin had gone - Without one word and all alone, - We crept up through the laurels there - Hoping that we might overhear - The splendid secret, darkly great, - Of Peterkin’s mysterious fate; - And on what high adventure bound - He left our pleasant garden-ground, - Whether for old Japan once more - He voyaged from the dim blue shore, - Or whether he set out to run - By candle-light to Babylon. - - We just missed something father said - About a young prince that was dead, - A little warrior that had fought - And failed: how hopes were brought to nought - He said, and mortals made to bow - Before the Juggernaut of Death, - And all the world was darker now, - For Time’s grey lips and icy breath - Had blown out all the enchanted lights - That burned in Love’s Arabian nights; - And now he could not understand - Mother’s mystic fairy-land, - “Land of the dead, poor fairy-tale,” - He murmured, and her face grew pale, - And then with great soft shining eyes - She leant to him--she looked so wise-- - And, with her cheek against his cheek, - We heard her, ah so softly, speak. - - “Husband, there was a happy day, - Long ago, in love’s young May, - When with a wild-flower in your hand - You echoed that dead poet’s cry-- - ‘_Little flower, but if I could understand!_’ - And you saw it had roots in the depths of the sky, - And there in that smallest bud lay furled - The secret and meaning of all the world.” - - He shook his head and then he tried - To kiss her, but she only cried - And turned her face away and said, - “You come between me and my dead! - His soul is near me, night and day, - But you would drive it far away; - And you shall never kiss me now - Until you lift that brave old brow - Of faith I know so well; or else - Refute the tale the skylark tells, - Tarnish the glory of that May, - Explain the Smallest Flower away.” - And still he said, “Poor fairy-tales, - How terribly their starlight pales - Before the solemn sun of truth - That rises o’er the grave of youth!” - - “Is heaven a fairy-tale?” she said,-- - And once again he shook his head; - And yet we ne’er could understand - Why heaven should _not_ be fairy-land, - A part of heaven at least, and why - The thought of it made mother cry, - And why they went away so sad, - And father still quite unforgiven, - For what could children be but glad - To find a fairy-land in heaven? - - And as we talked it o’er we found - Our brains were really spinning round; - But Dick, our eldest, late returned - From school, by all the lore he’d learned - Declared that we should seek the lost - Smallest Flower at any cost. - For, since within its leaves lay furled - The secret of the whole wide world, - He thought that we might learn therein - The whereabouts of Peterkin; - And, if we found the Flower, we knew - Father would be forgiven, too; - And mother’s kiss atone for all - The quarrel by the rose-hung wall; - We knew not how, we knew not why, - But Dick it was who bade us try, - Dick made it all seem plain and clear, - And Dick it is who helps us here - To tell this tale of fairy-land - In words we scarce can understand. - For ere another golden hour - Had passed, our anxious parents found - We’d left the scented garden-ground - To seek--the Smallest Flower. - - - - - PART II - - THE FIRST DISCOVERY - - - Oh, grown-ups cannot understand - And grown-ups never will, - How short’s the way to fairy-land - Across the purple hill: - They smile: their smile is very bland, - Their eyes are wise and chill; - And yet--at just a child’s command-- - The world’s an Eden still. - - Under the cloudy lilac-tree, - Out at the garden-gate, - We stole, a little band of three, - To tempt our fairy fate. - There was no human eye to see, - No voice to bid us wait; - The gardener had gone home to tea, - The hour was very late. - - I wonder if you’ve ever dreamed, - In summer’s noonday sleep, - Of what the thyme and heather seemed - To ladybirds that creep - Like little crimson shimmering gems - Between the tiny twisted stems - Of fairy forests deep; - And what it looks like as they pass - Through jungles of the golden grass. - - If you could suddenly become - As small a thing as they, - A midget-child, a new Tom Thumb, - A little gauze-winged fay, - Oh then, as through the mighty shades - Of wild thyme woods and violet glades - You groped your forest-way, - How fraught each fragrant bough would be - With dark o’erhanging mystery. - How high the forest aisles would loom, - What wondrous wings would beat - Through gloamings loaded with perfume - In many a rich retreat, - While trees like purple censers bowed - And swung beneath a swooning cloud - Mysteriously sweet, - Where flowers that haunt no mortal clime - Burden the Forest of Wild Thyme. - - We’d watched the bats and beetles flit - Through sunset-coloured air - The night that we discovered it - And all the heavens were bare: - We’d seen the colours melt and pass - Like silent ghosts across the grass - To sleep--our hearts knew where; - And so we rose, and hand in hand - We sought the gates of fairy-land. - - For Peterkin, oh Peterkin, - The cry was in our ears, - A fairy clamour, clear and thin - From lands beyond the years; - A wistful note, a dying fall - As of the fairy bugle-call - Some dreamful changeling hears, - And pines within his mortal home - Once more through fairy-land to roam. - We left behind the pleasant row - Of cottage window-panes, - The village inn’s red-curtained glow, - The lovers in the lanes; - And stout of heart and strong of will - We climbed the purple perfumed hill, - And hummed the sweet refrains - Of fairy tunes the tall thin man - Taught us of old in Old Japan. - - So by the tall wide-barred church-gate - Through which we all could pass - We came to where that curious plate, - That foolish plate of brass, - Said Peterkin was fast asleep - Beneath a cold and ugly heap - Of earth and stones and grass. - It was a splendid place for play, - That churchyard, on a summer’s day; - - A splendid place for hide-and-seek - Between the grey old stones; - Where even grown-ups used to speak - In awestruck whispering tones; - And here and there the grass ran wild - In jungles for the creeping child, - And there were elfin zones - Of twisted flowers and words in rhyme - And great sweet cushions of wild thyme. - - So in a wild thyme snuggery there - We stayed awhile to rest; - A bell was calling folk to prayer: - One star was in the West: - The cottage lights grew far away, - The whole sky seemed to waver and sway - Above our fragrant nest; - And from a distant dreamland moon - Once more we heard that fairy tune: - - Why, mother once had sung it us - When, ere we went to bed, - She told the tale of Pyramus, - How Thisbe found him dead - And mourned his eyes as green as leeks, - His cherry nose, his cowslip cheeks. - - That tune would oft around us float - Since on a golden noon - We saw the play that Shakespeare wrote - Of Lion, Wall, and Moon; - Ah, hark--the ancient fairy theme-- - _Following darkness like a dream!_ - - The very song Will Shakespeare sang, - The music that through Sherwood rang - And Arden and that forest glade - Where Hermie and Lysander strayed, - And Puck cried out with impish glee, - _Lord, what fools these mortals be_! - Though the masquerade was mute - Of Quince and Snout and Snug and Flute, - And Bottom with his donkey’s head - Decked with roses, white and red, - Though the fairies had forsaken - Sherwood now and faintly shaken - The forest-scents from off their feet, - Yet from some divine retreat - Came the music, sweet and clear, - To hang upon the raptured ear - With the free unfettered sway - Of blossoms in the moon of May. - Hark! the luscious fluttering - Of flower-soft words that kiss and cling, - And part again with sweet farewells, - And rhyme and chime like fairy-bells. - - “_I know a bank where the wild thyme blows - Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, - Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, - With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine._” - - Out of the undiscovered land - So sweetly rang the song, - We dreamed we wandered, hand in hand, - The fragrant aisles along, - Where long ago had gone to dwell - In some enchanted distant dell - The outlawed fairy throng - When out of Sherwood’s wildest glen - They sank, forsaking mortal men. - - And as we dreamed, the shadowy ground - Seemed gradually to swell; - And a strange forest rose around, - But how--we could not tell-- - Purple against a rose-red sky - The big boughs brooded silently: - Far off we heard a bell; - And, suddenly, a great red light - Smouldered before our startled sight. - - Then came a cry, a fiercer flash, - And down between the trees - We saw great crimson figures crash, - Wild-eyed monstrosities; - Great dragon-shapes that breathed a flame - From roaring nostrils as they came: - We sank upon our knees; - And looming o’er us, ten yards high, - Like battleships they thundered by. - - And then, as down that mighty dell - We followed, faint with fear, - We understood the tolling bell - That called the monsters there; - For right in front we saw a house - Woven of wild mysterious boughs - Bursting out everywhere - In crimson flames, and with a shout - The monsters rushed to put it out. - - And, in a flash, the truth was ours; - And there we knew--we knew-- - The meaning of those trees like flowers, - Those boughs of rose and blue, - And from the world we’d left above - A voice came crooning like a dove - To prove the dream was true: - And this--we knew it by the rhyme - Must be--the Forest of Wild Thyme. - - For out of the mystical rose-red dome - Of heaven the voice came murmuring down: - _Oh, Ladybird, Ladybird, fly away home; - Your house is on fire and your children are gone._ - - We knew, we knew it by the rhyme, - Though _we_ seemed, after all, - No tinier, yet the sweet wild thyme - Towered like a forest tall - All round us; oh, we knew not how, - And yet--we knew those monsters now: - Our dream’s divine recall - Had dwarfed us, as with magic words; - The dragons were but ladybirds! - - And all around us as we gazed, - Half glad, half frightened, all amazed, - The scented clouds of purple smoke - In lurid gleams of crimson broke; - And o’er our heads the huge black trees - Obscured the sky’s red mysteries; - While here and there gigantic wings - Beat o’er us, and great scaly things - Fold over monstrous leathern fold - Out of the smouldering copses rolled; - And eyes like blood-red pits of flame - From many a forest-cavern came - To glare across the blazing glade, - Till, with the sudden thought dismayed, - We wondered if we e’er should find - The mortal home we left behind: - Fear clutched us in a grisly grasp, - We gave one wild and white-lipped gasp, - Then turned and ran, with streaming hair, - Away, away, and anywhere! - - And hurry-skurry, heart and heel and hand, we tore along, - And still our flying feet kept time and pattered on for Peterkin, - For Peterkin, oh Peterkin, it made a kind of song - To prove the road was right although it seemed so dark and wrong, - As through the desperate woods we plunged and - ploughed for little Peterkin, - Where many a hidden jungle-beast made noises like a gong - That rolled and roared and rumbled as we rushed along to Peterkin. - - Peterkin, Peterkin, if you could only hear - And answer us; one little word from little lonely Peterkin - To take and comfort father, he is sitting in his chair - In the library: he’s listening for your footstep on the stair - And your patter down the passage, he can only think of Peterkin: - Come back, come back to father, for to-day he’d let us tear - His newest book to make a paper-boat for little Peterkin. - - - - - PART III - - THE HIDEOUS HERMIT - - - Ah, what wonders round us rose - When we dared to pause and look, - Curious things that seemed all toes, - Goblins from a picture-book; - Ants like witches, four feet high, - Waving all their skinny arms, - Glared at us and wandered by, - Muttering their ancestral charms. - - Stately forms in green and gold - Armour strutted through the glades, - Just as Hamlet’s ghost, we’re told, - Mooned among the midnight shades; - Once a sort of devil came - Scattering broken trees about, - Winged with leather, eyed with flame,-- - He was but a moth, no doubt. - - Here and there, above us clomb - Feathery clumps of palm on high: - Those were ferns, of course, but some - Really seemed to touch the sky; - Yes; and down one fragrant glade, - Listening as we onward stole, - Half delighted, half afraid, - _Dong_, we heard the hare-bells toll! - - Something told us what that gleam - Down the glen was brooding o’er; - Something told us in a dream - What the bells were tolling for! - Something told us there was fear, - Horror, peril, on our way! - Was it far or was it near? - _Near_, we heard the night-wind say. - - _Toll_, the music reeled and pealed - Through the vast and sombre trees, - Where a rosy light revealed - Dimmer, sweeter mysteries; - And, like petals of the rose, - Fairy fans in beauty beat, - Light in light--ah, what were those - Rhymes we heard the night repeat? - - _Toll_, a dream within a dream, - Up an aisle of rose and blue, - Up the music’s perfumed stream - Came the words, and then we knew, - Knew that in that distant glen - Once again the case was tried, - Hark!--_Who killed Cock Robin, then?_ - And a tiny voice replied, - “_I_ - _killed_ - _Cock_ - _Robin!_” - - “_I!_ And who are _You_, sir, pray?” - Growled a voice that froze our marrow: - “Who!” we heard the murderer say, - “Lord, sir, I’m the famous Sparrow, - And this ’ere’s my bow and arrow! - “_I_ - _killed_ - _Cock_ - _Robin!_” - - Then, with one great indrawn breath, - Such a sighin’ and a sobbin’ - Rose all round us for the death - Of poor, poor Cock Robin, - Oh, we couldn’t bear to wait - Even to hear the murderer’s fate, - Which we’d often wished to know - Sitting in the fireside glow - And with hot revengeful looks - Searched for in the nursery-books; - For the Robin and the Wren - Are such friends to mortal men, - Such dear friends to mortal men! - - _Toll_; and through the woods once more - Stole we, drenched with fragrant dew: - _Toll_; the hare-bell’s burden bore - Deeper meanings than we knew: - Still it told us there was fear, - Horror, peril on our way! - Was it far or was it near? - _Near_, we heard the night-wind say! - - _Near_; and once or twice we saw - Something like a monstrous eye, - Something like a hideous claw - Steal between us and the sky: - Still we hummed a dauntless tune - Trying to think such things might be - Glimpses of the fairy moon - Hiding in some hairy tree. - - Yet around us as we went - Through the glades of rose and blue - Sweetness with the horror blent - Wonder-wild in scent and hue: - Here Aladdin’s cavern yawned, - Jewelled thick with gorgeous dyes; - There a head of clover dawned - Like a cloud in eastern skies. - - Hills of topaz, lakes of dew, - Fairy cliffs of crystal sheen - Passed we; and the forest’s blue - Sea of branches tossed between: - Once we saw a gryphon make - One soft iris as it passed - Like the curving meteor’s wake - O’er the forest, far and fast. - - Winged with purple, breathing flame, - Crimson-eyed we saw him go, - Where--ah! could it be the same - Cockchafer we used to know?-- - Valley-lilies overhead, - High aloof in clustered spray, - Far through heaven their splendour spread, - Glimmering like the Milky Way. - - Mammoths father calls “extinct,” - Creatures that the cave-men feared, - Through that forest walked and blinked, - Through that jungle crawled and leered; - Beasts no Nimrod ever knew, - Woolly bears of black and red; - Crocodiles, we wondered who - Ever dared to see _them_ fed. - - Were they lizards? If they were, - They could swallow _us_ with ease; - But they slumbered quietly there - In among the mighty trees; - Red and silver, blue and green, - Played the moonlight on their scales; - Golden eyes they had, and lean - Crookéd legs with cruel nails. - - Yet again, oh, faint and far, - Came the shadow of a cry, - Like the calling of a star - To its brother in the sky; - Like an echo in a cave - Where young mermen sound their shells, - Like the wind across a grave - Bright with scent of lily-bells. - - Like a fairy hunter’s horn - Sounding in some purple glen - Sweet revelly to the morn - And the fairy quest again: - Then, all round it surged a song - We could never understand - Though it lingered with us long, - And it seemed so sad and grand. - - - SONG - - _Little Boy Blue, come blow up your horn, - Summon the day of deliverance in: - We are weary of bearing the burden of scorn_ - _As we yearn for the home that we never shall win; - For here there is weeping and sorrow and sin, - And the poor and the weak are a spoil for the strong! - Ah! when shall the song of the ransomed begin? - The world is grown weary with waiting so long._ - - _Little Boy Blue, you are gallant and brave, - There was never a doubt in those clear bright eyes; - Come, challenge the grim dark Gates of the Grave - As the skylark sings to those infinite skies! - This world is a dream, say the old and the wise, - And its rainbows arise o’er the false and the true; - But the mists of the morning are made of our sighs,--_ - _Ah, shatter them, scatter them, Little Boy - Blue!_ - - _Little Boy Blue, if the child-heart knows, - Sound but a note as a little one may; - And the thorns of the desert shall bloom with the rose, - And the Healer shall wipe all tears away; - Little Boy Blue, we are all astray, - The sheep’s in the meadow, the cow’s in the corn, - Ah, set the world right, as a little one may; - Little Boy Blue, come blow up your horn!_ - - Yes; and there between the trees - Circled with a misty gleam - Like the light a mourner sees - Round an angel in a dream; - Was it he? oh, brave and slim, - Straight and clad in æry blue, - Lifting to his lips the dim - Golden horn? We never knew! - - Never; for a witch’s hair - Flooded all the moonlit sky, - And he vanished, then and there, - In the twinkling of an eye: - Just as either boyish cheek - Puffed to set the world aright, - Ere the golden horn could speak - Round him flowed the purple night. - - * * * * * - - At last we came to a round black road - That tunnelled through the woods and showed, - Or so we thought, a good clear way - Back to the upper lands of day; - Great silken cables overhead - In many a mighty mesh were spread - Netting the rounded arch, no doubt - To keep the weight of leafage out. - And, as the tunnel narrowed down - So thick and close the cords had grown - No leaf could through their meshes stray, - And the faint moonlight died away; - Only a strange grey glimmer shone - To guide our weary footsteps on, - Until, tired out, we stood before - The end, a great grey silken door. - - Then from out a weird old wicket, overgrown with shaggy hair - Like a weird and wicked eyebrow round a weird and wicked eye, - Two great eyeballs and a beard - For one ghastly moment peered - At our faces with a sudden stealthy stare: - Then the door was opened wide, - And a hideous hermit cried - With a shy and soothing smile from out his lair, - _Won’t you walk into my parlour? I can make you cosy there!_ - - And we couldn’t quite remember where we’d heard that phrase before, - As the great grey-bearded ogre stood beside his open door; - But an echo seemed to answer from a land beyond the sky-- - _Won’t you walk into my parlour? said the spider to the fly!_ - - Then we looked a little closer at the ogre as he stood - With his great red eyeballs glowing like two torches in a wood, - And his mighty speckled belly and his dreadful clutching claws, - And his nose--a horny parrot’s beak, his whiskers and his jaws; - Yet he seemed so sympathetic, and we saw two tears descend, - As he murmured, “I’m so ugly, but I’ve lost my dearest friend! - I tell you most lymphatic’ly, I’ve yearnings in my soul,”-- - And right along his parrot’s beak we saw the tear-drops roll; - He’s an _arrant sentimentalist_, we heard a distant sigh, - _Won’t you weep upon my bosom? said the spider to the fly._ - - “If you’d dreamed my dreams of beauty, if you’d seen my works of art, - If you’d felt the cruel hunger that is gnawing at my heart, - And the grief that never leaves me and the love I can’t forget, - (For I loved with all the letters in the Chinese alphabet!) - Oh, you’d all come in to comfort me: you ought to help the weak; - And I’m full of melting moments; and--I--know--the--thing--you--seek!” - And the haunting echo answered, _Well, I’m sure you ought to try; - There’s a duty to one’s neighbour, said the spider to the fly._ - - So we walked into his parlour - Though a gleam was in his eye; - And it _was_ the prettiest parlour - That ever we did spy! - - But we saw by the uncertain - Misty light, shot through with gleams - Of many a silken curtain - Broidered o’er with dreadful dreams, - That he locked the door behind us! So we stood with bated breath - In a silence deep as death. - - There were scarlet gleams and crimson - In the curious foggy grey, - Like the blood-red light that swims on - Old canals at fall of day, - Where the smoke of some great city loops and droops in gorgeous veils - Round the heavy purple barges’ tawny sails. - - Were those creatures gagged and muffled - See--there--by that severed head? - Was it but a breeze that ruffled - Those dark curtains, splashed with red, - Ruffled the dark figures on them, made them moan like things in pain? - How we wished that we were safe at home again. - - * * * * * - - “Oh, we want to hear of Peterkin; good sir, you say you know; - Won’t you tell us, won’t you put us in the way we want to go?” - So we pleaded, for he seemed so very full of sighs and tears - That we couldn’t doubt his kindness, and we smothered all our fears; - But he said, “You must be crazy if you come to me for help; - Why should I desire to send you to your horrid little whelp?” - And again the foolish echo made a far-away reply, - _Oh, don’t come to me for comfort, - Pray don’t look to me for comfort, - Heavens! you mustn’t be so selfish, said the spider to the fly._ - - “Still, when the King of Scotland, so to speak, was in a hole, - He was aided by my brother: it’s a story to console - The convict on the treadmill and the infant with a sum, - For it teaches you to try again until your kingdom’s come! - The monarch dawdled in that hole for centuries of time - Until my own twin-brother rose and showed him how to climb: - He showed him how to swing and sway upon a tiny thread - Across a mighty precipice, and light upon his head - Without a single fracture and without a single pain - If he only did it frequently and tried and tried again:” - And once again the whisper like a moral wandered by, - _Perseverance is a virtue, said the spider to the fly._ - - Then he moaned, “My heart is hungry; but I fear I cannot eat, - (Of course I speak entirely now of spiritual meat!) - For I only fed an hour ago, but if we calmly sat - While I told you all my troubles in a confidential chat - It would give me _such_ an appetite to hear you sympathise, - And I should sleep the better--see, the tears are in my eyes! - Dead yearnings are such dreadful things, let’s keep ’em all alive,-- - Let’s sit and talk awhile, my dears; we’ll dine, I think, at five.” - And he brought his chair beside us in his most engaging style, - And began to tell his story with a melancholy smile.-- - - “You remember Miss Muffet - Who sat on a tuffet - Partaking of curds and whey; - Well, _I_ am the spider - Who sat down beside her - And frightened Miss Muffet away! - There was nothing against her! - An elderly spinster - Were such a grammatical mate - For a spider and spinner, - I swore I would win her, - I knew I had met with my fate! - - That love was the purest - And strongest and surest - I’d felt since my first thread was spun; - I know I’m a bogey, - But _she’s_ an old fogey, - So why in the world did she run? - When Bruce was in trouble, - A spider, my double, - Encouraged him greatly, they say! - Now, _why_ should the spider - Who sat down beside her - Have frightened Miss Muffet away?” - - He seemed to have much more to tell, - But we could scarce be listening well, - Although we tried with all our might - To look attentive and polite; - For still afar we heard the thin - Clear fairy-call to Peterkin; - Clear as a skylark’s mounting song - It drew our wandering thoughts along. - Afar, it seemed, yet, ah, so nigh, - Deep in our dreams it scaled the sky, - In captive dreams that brooked no bars - It touched the love that moves the stars, - And with sweet music’s golden tether - It bound our hearts and heaven together. - - - SONG - - _Wake, arise, the lake, the skies_ - _Fade into the faery day;_ - _Come and sing before our king,_ - _Heed not Time, the dotard grey;_ - _Time has given his crown to heaven--Ah,_ - _how long? Awake, away!_ - - Then, as the Hermit rambled on - In one long listless monotone, - We heard a wild and mournful groan - Come rumbling down the tunnelled way; - A voice, an awful mournful bray, - Singing some old funereal lay; - Then solemn footsteps, muffled, dull, - Approached as if they trod on wool, - And as they nearer, nearer drew, - We saw our Host was listening too! - - His bulging eyes began to glow - Like great red match-heads rubbed at night, - And then he stole with a grim “O-ho!” - To that grey old wicket where, out of sight, - Blandly rubbing his hands and humming, - He could see, at one glance, whatever was coming. - - He had never been so jubilant or frolicsome before, - As he scurried on his cruel hairy crutches to the door; - And flung it open wide - And most hospitably cried, - “Won’t you walk into my parlour? I’ve some little friends to tea,-- - They’ll be highly entertaining to a man of sympathy, - Such as you yourself must be!” - - Then the man, for so he seemed, - (Doubtless one who’d lost his way - And was dwarfed as we had been!) - In his ancient suit of black, - Black upon the verge of green, - Entered like a ghost that dreamed - Sadly of some bygone day; - And he never ceased to sing - In that awful mournful bray. - - The door closed behind his back; - He walked round us in a ring, - And we hoped that he might free us, - But his tears appeared to blind him, - For he didn’t seem to see us, - And the Hermit crept behind him - Like a cat about to spring. - - And the song he sang was this; - And his nose looked very grand - As he sang it, with a bliss - Which we could not understand; - For his voice was very sad, - While his nose was proud and glad. - - _Rain, April, rain, thy sunny, sunny tears!_ - _Through the black boughs the robe of Spring appears,_ - _Yet, for the ghosts of all the bygone years,_ - _Rain, April, rain._ - - _Rain, April, rain; the rose will soon be glad;_ - _Spring will rejoice, a Spring I, too, have had;_ - _A little while, till I no more be sad,_ - _Rain, April, rain._ - - And then the spider sprang - Before we could breathe or speak, - And one great scream out-rang - As the terrible horny beak - Crunched into the Sad Man’s head, - And the terrible hairy claws - Clutched him around his middle; - And he opened his lantern-jaws, - And he gave one twist, one twiddle, - One kick, and his sorrow was dead. - - And there, as he sucked his bleeding prey, - The spider leered at us--“You will do, - My sweet little dears, for another day; - But this is the sort I like; huh! huh!” - - And there we stood, in frozen fear, - Whiter than death, - With bated breath; - And lo! as we thought of Peterkin, - Father and home and Peterkin, - Once more that music clear and thin, - Clear as a skylark’s mounting song, - But nearer now, more sweet, more strong, - Drew all our wandering thoughts along, - Until it seemed, a mystic sea - Of hidden delight and harmony - Began to ripple and rise all round - The prison where our hearts lay bound; - And from sweet heaven’s most rosy rim - There swelled a distant marching hymn - Which made the hideous Hermit pause - And listen with lank down-dropt jaws, - Till, with great bulging eyes of fear, - He sought the wicket again to peer - Along the tunnel, as like sweet rain - We heard the still approaching strain, - And, under it, the rhythmic beat - Of multitudinous marching feet. - Nearer, nearer, they rippled and rang, - And this was the marching song they sang:-- - - - SONG - - _A fairy band are we_ - _In fairy-land:_ - _Singing march we, hand in hand;_ - _Singing, singing all day long:_ - _(Some folk never heard a fairy-song!)_ - - _Singing, singing,_ - _When the merry thrush is swinging_ - _On a springing spray;_ - _Or when the witch that lives in gloomy caves_ - _And creeps by night among the graves_ - _Calls a cloud across the day;_ - _Cease we never our fairy song,_ - _March we ever, along, along,_ - _Down the dale, or up the hill,_ - _Singing, singing still._ - - And suddenly the Hermit turned and ran with all his might - Through the back-door of his parlour as we thought of little Peterkin; - And the great grey roof was shattered by a shower of rosy light, - And the spider-house went floating, torn and tattered through the night - In a flight of prismy streamers, as a shout went up for Peterkin; - And lo, the glistening fairy-host stood there arrayed for fight, - In arms of rose and green and gold, to lead us on to Peterkin. - - And all around us, rippling like a pearl and opal sea, - The host of fairy faces winked a kindly hint of Peterkin; - And all around the rosy glade a laugh of fairy glee - Watched spider-streamers floating up from fragrant tree to tree - Till the moonlight caught the gossamers and, oh we wished for Peterkin! - Each rope became a rainbow; but it made us ache to see - Such a fairy forest-pomp without explaining it to Peterkin. - - Then all the glittering crowd - With a courtly gesture bowed - Like a rosy jewelled cloud - Round a flame, - As the King of Fairy-land, - Very dignified and grand, - Stepped forward to demand - Whence we came. - - He’d a cloak of gold and green - Such as caterpillars spin, - For the fairy ways, I ween, - Are very frugal; - He’d a bow that he had borne - Since the crimson Eden morn, - And a honeysuckle horn - For his bugle. - - So we told our tale of faëry to the King of Fairy-land, - And asked if he could let us know the latest news of Peterkin; - And he turned him with a courtly smile and waved his jewelled wand - And cried, _Pease-blossom, Mustard-seed! You know the old command;_ - _Well; these are little children; you must lead them on to Peterkin._ - Then he knelt, the King of Faëry knelt; his eyes were great and grand - As he took our hands and kissed them, saying, _Father - loves your Peterkin_! - - So out they sprang, on either side, - A light fantastic fairy guide, - To lead us to the land unknown - Where little Peterkin was gone; - And, as we went with timid pace, - We saw that every fairy face - In all that moonlit host was wet - With tears: we never shall forget - The mystic hush that seemed to fade - Away like sound, as down the glade - We passed beyond their zone of light. - Then through the forest’s purple night - We trotted, at a pleasant speed, - With gay Pease-blossom and Mustard-seed. - - - - - PART IV - - PEASE-BLOSSOM AND MUSTARD-SEED - - - Shyly we surveyed our guides - As through the gloomy woods we went - In the light that the straggling moonbeams lent: - We envied them their easy strides! - Pease-blossom in his crimson cap - And delicate suit of rose-leaf green, - His crimson sash and his jewelled dagger, - Strutted along with an elegant swagger - Which showed that he didn’t care one rap - For anything less than a Fairy Queen: - His eyes were deep like the eyes of a poet, - Although his crisp and curly hair - Certainly didn’t seem to show it! - While Mustard-seed was a devil-may-care - Epigrammatic and pungent fellow - Clad in a splendid suit of yellow, - With emerald stars on his glittering breast - And eyes that shone with a diamond light: - They made you feel sure it would always be best - To tell him the truth: he was not perhaps _quite_ - So polite as Pease-blossom, but then who could be - _Quite_ such a debonair fairy as he? - - We never could tell you one-half that we heard - And saw on that journey. For instance, a bird - Ten times as big as an elephant stood - By the side of a nest like a great thick wood: - The clouds in glimmering wreaths were spread - Behind its vast and shadowy head - Which rolled at us trembling below. (Its eyes - Were like great black moons in those pearl-pale skies.) - And we feared he might take us, perhaps, for a worm. - - But he ruffled his breast with the sound of a storm, - And snuggled his head with a careless disdain - Under his huge hunched wing again; - And Mustard-seed said, as we stole thro’ the dark, - There was nothing to fear: it was only a Lark! - - And so he cheered the way along - With many a neat little epigram, - While dear Pease-blossom before him swam - On a billow of lovely moonlit song, - Telling us why they had left their home - In Sherwood, and had hither come - To dwell in this magical scented clime, - This dim old Forest of sweet Wild Thyme. - - “Men toil,” he said, “from morn till night - With bleeding hands and blinded sight - For gold, more gold! They have betrayed - The trust that in their souls was laid; - Their fairy birthright they have sold - For little disks of mortal gold; - And now they cannot even see - The gold upon the greenwood tree, - The wealth of coloured lights that pass - In soft gradations through the grass, - The riches of the love untold - That wakes the day from grey to gold; - And howsoe’er the moonlight weaves - Magic webs among the leaves - Englishmen care little now - For elves beneath the hawthorn bough: - Nor if Robin should return - Dare they of an outlaw learn; - For them the Smallest Flower is furled, - Mute is the music of the world; - And unbelief has driven away - Beauty from the blossomed spray.” - - Then Mustard-seed with diamond eyes - Taught us to be laughter-wise, - And he showed us how that Time - Is much less powerful than a rhyme; - And that Space is but a dream; - “For look,” he said, with eyes agleam, - “Now you are become so small - You think the Thyme a forest tall; - But underneath your feet you see - A world of wilder mystery - Where, if you were smaller yet, - You would just as soon forget - This forest, which you’d leave above - As you have left the home you love! - For, since the Thyme you used to know - Seems a forest here below, - What if you should sink again - And find there stretched a mighty plain - Between each grass-blade and the next? - You’d think till you were quite perplexed! - Especially if all the flowers - That lit the sweet Thyme-forest bowers - Were in that wild transcendent change - Turned to Temples, great and strange, - With many a pillared portal high - And domes that swelled against the sky! - How foolish, then, you will agree, - Are those who think that all must see - The world alike, or those who scorn - Another who, perchance, was born - Where--in a different dream from theirs-- - What they call sins to him are prayers! - We cannot judge; we cannot know; - All things mingle; all things flow; - There’s only one thing constant here-- - Love--that untranscended sphere: - Love, that while all ages run - Holds the wheeling worlds in one; - Love that, as your sages tell, - Soars to heaven and sinks to hell.” - - Even as he spoke, we seemed to grow - Smaller, the Thyme trees seemed to go - Farther away from us: new dreams - Flashed out on us with mystic gleams - Of mighty Temple-domes: deep awe - Held us all breathless as we saw - A carven portal glimmering out - Between new flowers that put to rout - Our other fancies: in sweet fear - We tiptoed past, and seemed to hear - A sound of singing from within - That told our souls of Peterkin: - Our thoughts of _him_ were still the same - Howe’er the shadows went and came! - So, on we wandered, hand in hand, - And all the world was fairy-land. - - * * * * * - - And as we went we seemed to hear - Surging up from distant dells - A solemn music, soft and clear - As if a field of lily-bells - Were tolling all together, sweet - But sad and low and keeping time - To multitudinous marching feet - With a slow funereal beat - And a deep harmonious chime - That told us by its dark refrain - The reason fairies suffered pain. - - - - - SONG - - - Bear her along - Keep ye your song - Tender and sweet and low: - Fairies must die! - Ask ye not why - Ye that have hurt her so. - _Passing away--flower from the spray! Colour and light from the leaf! - Soon, soon will the year shed its bloom on her bier, and - the dust of its dreams on our grief._ - - Men upon earth - Bring us to birth - Gently at even and morn! - When as brother and brother - They greet one another - And smile--then a fairy is born! - But at each cruel word - Upon earth that is heard, - Each deed of unkindness or hate, - Some fairy must pass - From the games in the grass - And steal thro’ the terrible Gate. - _Passing away--flower from the spray! Colour and light from the leaf! - Soon, soon will the year shed its bloom on her bier, and the - dust of its dreams on our grief._ - - If ye knew, if ye knew - All the wrong that ye do - By the thought that ye harbour alone, - How the face of some fairy - Grows wistful and weary - And the heart in her cold as a stone! - Ah, she was born - Blithe as the morn - Under an April sky, - Born of the greeting - Of two lovers meeting! - They parted, and so she must die! - _Passing away--flower from the spray! Colour and light from the leaf!_ - _Soon, soon will the year shed its bloom on her bier, and - the dust of its dreams on our grief._ - - Cradled in blisses, - Yea, born of your kisses, - Oh, ye lovers that met by the moon, - She would not have cried - In the darkness and died - If ye had not forgotten so soon! - - Cruel mortals, they say, - Live for ever and aye, - And they pray in the dark on their knees! - But the flowers that are fled - And the loves that are dead, - What heaven takes pity on these? - - _Bear her along--singing your song--tender and sweet and low!_ - _Fairies must die! Ask ye not why--ye that have hurt her so._ - - Passing away-- - Flower from the spray! - Colour and light from the leaf! - Soon, soon will the year - Shed its bloom on her bier - And the dust of its dreams on our grief! - - * * * * * - - Then we came through a glittering crystal grot - By a path like a pale moonbeam, - And a broad blue bridge of Forget-me-not - Over a shimmering stream, - To where, through the deep blue dusk, a gleam - Rose like the soul of the setting sun; - A sunset breaking through the earth, - A crimson sea of the poppies of dream, - Deep as the sleep that gave them birth - In the night where all earthly dreams are done. - - And then, like a pearl-pale porch of the moon, - Faint and sweet as a starlit shrine, - Over the gloom - Of the crimson bloom - We saw the Gates of Ivory shine; - And, lulled and lured by the lullaby tune - Of the cradling airs that drowsily creep - From blossom to blossom, and lazily croon - Through the heart of the midnight’s mystic noon, - We came to the Gates of the City of Sleep. - - Faint and sweet as a lily’s repose - On the broad black breast of a midnight lake, - The City delighted the cradling night: - Like a straggling palace of cloud it rose; - The towers were crowned with a crystal light - Like the starry crown of a white snowflake - As they pierced in a wild white pinnacled crowd, - Through the dusky wreaths of enchanted cloud - That swirled all round like a witch’s hair. - - And we heard, as the sound of a great sea sighing, - The sigh of the sleepless world of care; - And we saw strange shadowy figures flying - Up to the Ivory Gates and beating - With pale hands, long and famished and thin; - Like blinded birds we saw them dash - Against the cruelly gleaming wall: - We heard them wearily moan and call - With sharp starved lips for ever entreating - The pale doorkeeper to let them in. - And still, as they beat, again and again, - We saw on the moon-pale lintels a splash - Of crimson blood like a poppy-stain - Or a wild red rose from the gardens of pain - That sigh all night like a ghostly sea - From the City of Sleep to Gethsemane. - - And lo, as we neared that mighty crowd - An old blind man came, crying aloud - To greet us, as once the blind man cried - In the Bible picture--you know we tried - To paint that print, with its Eastern sun; - But the reds and the yellows _would_ mix and run, - And the blue of the sky made a horrible mess - Right over the edge of the Lord’s white dress. - - And the old blind man, just as though he had eyes, - Came straight to meet us; and all the cries - Of the crowd were hushed; and a strange sweet calm - Stole through the air like a breath of the balm - That was wafted abroad from the Forest of Thyme - (For it rolled all round that curious clime - With its magical clouds of perfumed trees.) - And the blind man cried, “Our help is at hand, - Oh, brothers, remember the old command, - Remember the frankincense and myrrh, - Make way, make way for those little ones there; - Make way, make way, I have seen them afar - Under a great white Eastern star; - For I am the mad blind man who sees!” - Then he whispered, softly--_Of such as these_; - And through the hush of the cloven crowd - We passed to the gates of the City, and there - Our fairy heralds cried aloud-- - _Open your Gates; don’t stand and stare; - These are the Children for whom our King - Made all the star-worlds dance in a ring!_ - - And lo, like a sorrow that melts from the heart - In tears, the slow gates melted apart; - And into the City we passed like a dream; - And then, in one splendid marching stream - The whole of that host came following through. - We were only children, just like you; - Children, ah, but we felt so grand - As we led them--although we could understand - Nothing at all of the wonderful song - That rose all round as we marched along. - - - - - SONG - - - _You that have seen how the world and its glory_ - _Change and grow old like the love of a friend;_ - _You that have come to the end of the story,_ - _You that were tired ere you came to the end;_ - _You that are weary of laughter and sorrow,_ - _Pain and pleasure, labour and sin,_ - _Sick of the midnight and dreading the morrow,_ - _Ah, come in; come in._ - - _You that are bearing the load of the ages;_ - _You that have loved overmuch and too late;_ - _You that confute all the saws of the sages;_ - _You that served only because you must wait,_ - _Knowing your work was a wasted endeavour;_ - _You that have lost and yet triumphed therein,_ - _Add loss to your losses and triumph for ever;_ - _Ah, come in; come in._ - - And we knew as we went up that twisted street, - With its violet shadows and pearl-pale walls, - We were coming to Something strange and sweet, - For the dim air echoed with elfin calls; - And, far away, in the heart of the City, - A murmur of laughter and revelry rose,-- - A sound that was faint as the smile of Pity, - And sweet as a swan-song’s golden close. - - And then, once more, as we marched along, - There surged all round us that wonderful song; - And it swung to the tramp of our marching feet; - But ah, it was tenderer now and so sweet - That it made our eyes grow wet and blind, - And the whole wide-world seem mother-kind, - Folding us round with a gentle embrace, - And pressing our souls to her soft sweet face. - - - - - SONG - - - _Dreams; dreams; ah, the memory blinding us, - Blinding our eyes to the way that we go; - Till the new sorrow come, once more reminding us - Blindly of kind hearts, ours long ago: - Mother-mine, whisper we, yours was the love for me! - Still, though our paths lie lone and apart, - Yours is the true love, shining above for me, - Yours are the kind eyes, hurting my heart._ - - _Dreams; dreams; ah, how shall we sing of them,_ - _Dreams that we loved with our head on her breast:_ - _Dreams; dreams; and the cradle-sweet swing of them;_ - _Ay, for her voice was the sound we loved best:_ - _Can we remember at all or, forgetting it,_ - _Can we recall for a moment the gleam_ - _Of our childhood’s delight and the wonder begetting it,_ - _Wonder awakened in dreams of a dream?_ - - And, once again, from the heart of the City - A murmur of tenderer laughter rose, - A sound that was faint as the smile of Pity, - And sweet as a swan-song’s golden close; - And it seemed as if some wonderful Fair - Were charming the night of the City of Dreams, - For, over the mystical din out there, - The clouds were litten with flickering gleams, - And a roseate light like the day’s first flush - Quivered and beat on the towers above, - And we heard through the curious crooning hush - An elfin song that we used to love. - _Little Boy Blue, come blow up your horn ..._ - And the soft wind blew it the other way; - And all that we heard was--_Cow’s in the corn_; - But we never heard anything half so gay! - - And ever we seemed to be drawing nearer - That mystical roseate smoke-wreathed glare, - And the curious music grew louder and clearer, - Till _Mustard-Seed_ said, “We are lucky, you see, - We’ve arrived at a time of festivity!” - And so to the end of the street we came, - And turned a corner, and--there we were, - In a place that glowed like the dawn of day, - A crowded clamouring City square - Like the cloudy heart of an opal, aflame - With the lights of a great Dream-Fair: - Thousands of children were gathered there, - Thousands of old men, weary and grey, - And the shouts of the showmen filled the air-- - This way! This way! This way! - - And _See-Saw_; _Margery Daw_; we heard a rollicking shout, - As the swing-boats hurtled over our heads to the tune of the roundabout; - And _Little Boy Blue, come blow up your horn_, we heard the showmen cry, - And _Dickory Dock, I’m as good as a clock_, we heard the swings reply. - - This way, this way to your Heart’s Desire; - Come, cast your burdens down; - And the pauper shall mount his throne in the skies, - And the king be rid of his crown: - And souls that were dead shall be fed with fire - From the fount of their ancient pain, - And your lost love come with the light in her eyes - Back to your heart again. - - Ah, here be sure she shall never prove - Less kind than her eyes were bright; - This way, this way to your old lost love, - You shall kiss her lips to-night; - This way for the smile of a dead man’s face - And the grip of a brother’s hand, - This way to your childhood’s heart of grace - And your home in Fairy-land. - - _Dickory Dock, I’m as good as a clock_, d’you hear my swivels chime? - To and fro as I come and go, I keep eternal time. - O, little Bo-peep, if you’ve lost your sheep - and don’t know where to find ’em, - Leave ’em alone and they’ll come home, and carry their tails behind ’em. - - And _See-Saw_; _Margery Daw_; there came the chorussing shout, - As the swing-boats answered the roaring tune of the rollicking roundabout; - Dickory, dickory, dickory, dock, d’you hear my swivels chime? - Swing; swing; you’re as good as a king if you keep eternal time. - - Then we saw that the tunes of the world were one; - And the metre that guided the rhythmic sun - Was at one, like the ebb and the flow of the sea, - With the tunes that we learned at our mother’s knee; - The beat of the horse-hoofs that carried us down - To see the fine Lady of Banbury Town; - And so, by the rhymes that we knew, we could tell - Without knowing the others--that all was well. - - And then, our brains began to spin; - For it seemed as if that mighty din - Were no less than the cries of the poets and sages - Of all the nations in all the ages; - And, if they could only beat out the whole - Of their music together, the guerdon and goal - Of the world would be reached with one mighty shout, - And the dark dread secret of Time be out; - And nearer, nearer they seemed to climb, - And madder and merrier rose the song, - And the swings and the see-saws marked the time; - For this was the maddest and merriest throng - That ever was met on a holy-day - To dance the dust of the world away; - And madder and merrier, round and round - The whirligigs whirled to the whirling sound, - Till it seemed that the mad song burst its bars - And mixed with the song of the whirling stars, - The song that the rhythmic Time-Tides tell - To seraphs in Heaven and devils in Hell; - Ay; Heaven and Hell in accordant chime - With the universal rhythm and rhyme - Were nearing the secret of Space and Time; - The song of that ultimate mystery - Which only the mad blind men who see, - Led by the laugh of a little child, - Can utter; Ay, wilder and yet more wild - It maddened, till now--full song--it was out! - It roared from the starry roundabout-- - - _A child was born in Bethlehem, in Bethlehem, in Bethlehem,_ - _A child was born in Bethlehem; ah, hear my fairy fable;_ - _For I have seen the King of Kings, no longer thronged with angel wings,_ - _But croodling like a little babe, and cradled in a stable._ - _The wise men came to greet him with their gifts - of myrrh and frankincense,--_ - _Gold and myrrh and frankincense they brought to make him mirth;_ - _And would you know the way to win to little brother Peterkin,_ - _My childhood’s heart shall guide you through the glories of the earth._ - - _A child was born in Bethlehem, in Bethlehem, in Bethlehem;_ - _The wise men came to welcome him: a star stood o’er the gable;_ - _And there they saw the Kings of Kings, no longer - thronged with angel wings,_ - _But croodling like a little babe, and cradled in a stable._ - - And creeping through the music once again the fairy cry - Came freezing o’er the snowy towers to lead us on to Peterkin: - Once more the fairy bugles blew from lands beyond the sky, - And we all groped out together, dazed and blind, we knew not why; - Out through the City’s farther gates we went to look for Peterkin; - Out, out into the dark Unknown, and heard the clamour die - Far, far away behind us as we trotted on to Peterkin. - - Then once more along the rare - Forest-paths we groped our way: - Here the glow-worm’s league-long glare - Turned the Wild Thyme night to day: - There we passed a sort of whale - Sixty feet in length or more, - But we knew it was a snail - Even when we heard it snore. - Often through the glamorous gloom - Almost on the top of us - We beheld a beetle loom - Like a hippopotamus; - Once or twice a spotted toad - Like a mountain wobbled by - With a rolling moon that glowed - Through the skin-fringe of its eye. - - Once a caterpillar bowed - Down a leaf of Ygdrasil - Like a sunset-coloured cloud - Sleeping on a quiet hill: - Once we came upon a moth - Fast asleep with outspread wings, - Like a mighty tissued cloth - Woven for the feet of kings. - - There above the woods in state - Many a temple dome that glows - Delicately like a great - Rainbow-coloured bubble rose: - Though they were but flowers on earth, - Oh, we dared not enter in; - For in that divine re-birth - Less than awe were more than sin! - - Yet their mystic anthems came - Sweetly to our listening ears; - And their burden was the same-- - “No more sorrow, no more tears! - Whither Peterkin has gone - You, assuredly, shall go: - When your wanderings are done, - All he knows you, too, shall know!” - - So we thought we’d onward roam - Till earth’s Smallest Flower appeared, - With a less tremendous dome - Less divinely to be feared: - Then, perchance, if we should dare - Timidly to enter in, - Might some kindly doorkeeper - Give us news of Peterkin. - - At last we saw a crimson porch - Far away, like a dull red torch - Burning in the purple gloom; - And a great ocean of perfume - Rolled round us as we drew anear, - And then we strangely seemed to hear - The shadow of a mighty psalm, - A sound as if a golden sea - Of music swung in utter calm - Against the shores of Eternity; - And then we saw the mighty dome - Of some mysterious Temple tower - On high; and knew that we had come, - At last, to that sweet House of Grace - Which wise men find in every place-- - The Temple of the Smallest Flower. - - And there--alas--our fairy friends - Whispered, “Here our kingdom ends: - You must enter in alone, - But your souls will surely show - Whither Peterkin is gone - And the road that you must go: - We, poor fairies, have no souls! - Hark, the warning hare-bell tolls;” - So “Good-bye, good-bye,” they said, - “Dear little seekers-for-the-dead.” - They vanished; ah, but as they went - We heard their voices softly blent - In some mysterious fairy song - That seemed to make us wise and strong; - For it was like the holy calm - That fills the bosomed rose with balm, - Or blessings that the twilight breathes - Where the honeysuckle wreathes - Between young lovers and the sky - As on banks of flowers they lie; - And with wings of rose and green - Laughing fairies pass unseen, - Singing their sweet lullaby,-- - Lulla-lulla-lullaby! - Lulla-lulla-lullaby! - Ah, good night, with lullaby! - - * * * * * - - Only a flower? Those carven walls, - Those cornices and coronals, - The splendid crimson porch, the thin - Strange sounds of singing from within-- - Through the scented arch we stept, - Pushed back the soft petallic door, - And down the velvet aisles we crept; - Was it a Flower--no more? - - For one of the voices that we heard, - A child’s voice, clear as the voice of a bird, - Was it not?--nay, it could not be! - And a woman’s voice that tenderly - Answered him in fond refrain, - And pierced our hearts with sweet sweet pain, - As if dear Mary-mother hung - Above some little child, and sung - Between the waves of that golden sea - The cradle-songs of Eternity; - And, while in her deep smile he basked, - Answered whatsoe’er he asked. - - _What is there hid in the heart of a rose,_ - _Mother-mine?_ - _Ah, who knows, who knows, who knows?_ - _A man that died on a lonely hill_ - _May tell you, perhaps, but none other will,_ - _Little child._ - - _What does it take to make a rose,_ - _Mother-mine?_ - _The God that died to make it knows_ - _It takes the world’s eternal wars,_ - _It takes the moon and all the stars,_ - _It takes the might of heaven and hell_ - _And the everlasting Love as well,_ - _Little child._ - - But there, in one great shrine apart - Within the Temple’s holiest heart, - We came upon a blinding light, - Suddenly, and a burning throne - Of pinnacled glory, wild and white; - We could not see Who reigned thereon; - For, all at once, as a wood-bird sings, - The aisles were full of great white wings - Row above mystic burning row; - And through the splendour and the glow - We saw four angels, great and sweet, - With outspread wings and folded feet, - Come gliding down from a heaven within - The golden heart of Paradise; - And in their hands, with laughing eyes, - Lay little brother Peterkin. - - And all around the Temple of the Smallest of the Flowers - The glory of the angels made a star for little Peterkin; - For all the Kings of Splendour and all the Heavenly Powers - Were gathered there together in the fairy forest bowers - With all their globed and radiant wings to make a star for Peterkin, - The star that shone upon the East, a star that still is ours, - Whene’er we hang our stockings up, a star of wings for Peterkin. - - Then all, in one great flash, was gone-- - A voice cried, “Hush, all’s well!” - And we stood dreaming there alone, - In darkness. Who can tell - The mystic quiet that we felt, - As if the woods in worship knelt, - Far off we heard a bell - Tolling strange human folk to prayer - Through fields of sunset-coloured air. - - And then a voice, “Why, here they are!” - And--as it seemed--we woke; - The sweet old skies, great star by star - Upon our vision broke; - Field over field of heavenly blue - Rose o’er us; then a voice we knew - Softly and gently spoke-- - “See, they are sleeping by the side - Of that dear little one--who died.” - - - - - PART V - - THE HAPPY ENDING - - - We told dear father all our tale - That night before we went to bed, - And at the end his face grew pale, - And he bent over us and said - (Was it not strange?) he, too, was there, - A weary, weary watch to keep - Before the gates of the City of Sleep; - But, ere we came, he did not dare - Even to dream of entering in, - Or even to hope for Peterkin. - He was the poor blind man, he said, - And we--how low he bent his head! - Then he called mother near; and low - He whispered to us--“Prompt me now; - For I forget that song we heard, - But you remember every word.” - Then memory came like a breaking morn, - And we breathed it to him--_A child was born!_ - And there he drew us to his breast - And softly murmured all the rest.-- - - _The wise men came to greet him with their gifts - of myrrh and frankincense,--_ - _Gold and myrrh and frankincense they brought to make him mirth;_ - _And would you know the way to win to little brother Peterkin,_ - _My childhood’s heart shall guide you through the glories of the earth._ - - Then he looked up and mother knelt - Beside us, oh, her eyes were bright; - Her arms were like a lovely belt - All round us as we said Good-night - To father: _he_ was crying now, - But they were happy tears, somehow; - For there we saw dear mother lay - Her cheek against his cheek and say-- - Hush, let me kiss those tears away. - - - - - _DEDICATION_ - - - _What can a wanderer bring_ - _To little ones loved like you?_ - _You have songs of your own to sing_ - _That are far more steadfast and true,_ - _Crumbs of pity for birds_ - _That flit o’er your sun-swept lawn,_ - _Songs that are dearer than all our words_ - _With a love that is clear as the dawn._ - - _What should a dreamer devise,_ - _In the depths of his wayward will,_ - _To deepen the gleam of your eyes_ - _Who can dance with the Sun-child still?_ - _Yet you glanced on his lonely way,_ - _You cheered him in dream and deed,_ - _And his heart is o’erflowing, o’erflowing to-day_ - _With a love that--you never will need._ - - _What can a pilgrim teach_ - _To dwellers in fairy-land?_ - _Truth that excels all speech_ - _You murmur and understand!_ - _All he can sing you he brings;_ - _But--one thing more if he may_, - _One thing more that the King of Kings_ - _Will take from the child on the way._ - - _Yet how can a child of the night_ - _Brighten the light of the sun?_ - _How can he add a delight_ - _To the dances that never are done?_ - _Ah, what if he struggles to turn_ - _Once more to the sweet old skies_ - _With praise and praise, from the fetters that burn,_ - _To the God that brightened your eyes?_ - - _Yes; he is weak, he will fail,_ - _Yet, what if, in sorrows apart,_ - _One thing, one should avail,_ - _The cry of a grateful heart;_ - _It has wings: they return through the night_ - _To a sky where the light lives yet,_ - _To the clouds that kneel on his mountain-height_ - _And the path that his feet forget._ - - _What if he struggles and still_ - _Fails and struggles again?_ - _What if his broken will_ - _Whispers the struggle is vain?_ - _Once at least he has risen_ - _Because he remembered your eyes;_ - _Once they have brought to his earthly prison_ - _The passion of Paradise._ - - _Kind little eyes that I love,_ - _Eyes forgetful of mine,_ - _In a dream I am bending above_ - _Your sleep, and you open and shine;_ - _And I know as my own grow blind_ - _With a lonely prayer for your sake,_ - _He will hear--even me--little eyes that were kind,_ - _God bless you, asleep or awake._ - - * * * * * - -BY ALFRED NOYES - -Poems - -With an Introduction by HAMILTON MABIE - -_Cloth, 12mo, $1.25 net_ - -“Imagination, the capacity to perceive vividly and feel sincerely, and -the gift of fit and beautiful expression in verse-form--if these may be -taken as the equipment of a poet, nearly all of this volume is poetry. -And if to the sum of these be added the indescribable increment of charm -which comes occasionally to the work of some poet, quite unearned by any -of these catalogued qualities of his, you have a fair measure of Mr. -Noyes at his best.... Two considerations render Mr. Noyes interesting -above most poets: the wonderful degree in which the personal charm -illumines what he has already written, and the surprises which one feels -may be in store in his future work. His feelings have already so much -variety and so much apparent sincerity that it is impossible to tell in -what direction his genius will develop. In whatever style he -writes,--the mystical, the historical-dramatic, the impassioned -description of natural beauty, the ballad, the love lyric,--he has the -peculiarity of seeming in each style to have found the truest expression -of himself.”--_Louisville Courier-Journal._ - - -_PUBLISHED BY_ -THE MACMILLAN COMPANY -Sixty-four and Sixty-six Fifth Avenue, New York - - - - -A History of English Poetry - -BY W. J. COURTHOPE, C.B., D.Litt., LL.D. - -Late Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford - -_Cloth, 8vo, $3.25 net per volume_ - - VOLUME I. The Middle Ages--Influence of the Roman Empire--The - Encyclopædic Education of the Church--The Feudal System. - - VOLUME II. The Renaissance and the Reformation--Influence of the - Court and the Universities. - - VOLUME III. English Poetry in the Seventeenth Century--Decadent - Influence of the Feudal Monarchy--Growth of the National Genius. - - VOLUME IV. Development and Decline of the Poetic Drama--Influence - of the Court and the People. - - VOLUME V. The Constitutional Compromise of the Eighteenth - Century--Effects of the Classical Renaissance--Its Zenith and - Decline--The Early Romantic Renaissance. - - -“It is his privilege to have made a contribution of great value and -signal importance to the history of English Literature.”--_Pall Mall -Gazette._ - - -_PUBLISHED BY_ -THE MACMILLAN COMPANY -Sixty-four and Sixty-six Fifth Avenue, New York - - - - -RECENT POETRY - - -DAWSON--The Worker and Other Poems - -BY CONINGSBY WILLIAM DAWSON - -_Cloth, 12mo, $1.25 net; by mail, $1.35_ - -“The volume cannot be opened anywhere without yielding verse that will -repay the reading.”--_Courier-Journal._ - - -FALLAW--Silverleaf and Oak - -BY LANCE FALLAW - -_Cloth, 12mo, $1.25_ - -In the title of this book “Silverleaf” stands for South Africa, and -“Oak” for England. - - -NEIDIG--The First Wardens - -POEMS BY WILLIAM J. NEIDIG - -A volume of unusual quality of imagination and style, strongly marked -with the author’s individuality.--_Inter-Ocean._ - - -IRWIN--Random Rhymes and Odd Numbers - -BY WALLACE IRWIN - -“Inimitable jingles, deftly apropos, droll and satiric, striking a -humorous note that sounds of genius.”--_Philadelphia Press._ - -_Illustrated. Cloth, 12mo, $1.50 net_ - - - - -RECENT POETIC DRAMAS - - -By Mr. PERCY MACKAYE - - -=The Canterbury Pilgrims=: A Comedy - -_Cloth, illustrated, $1.25 net_ - - -=Fenris, the Wolf=: A Tragedy - -_Cloth, 12mo, $1.25 net_ - - -Jeanne d’Arc - -_Illustrated, cloth, 12mo, $1.25_ - -Presented by E. H. Sothern and Julia Marlowe - - -Sappho and Phaon - -_12mo, cloth, $1.25_ - - The play was accepted before publication for presentation by E. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Flower of Old Japan</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:0;'>and Other Poems</p> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Alfred Noyes</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: June 11, 2021 [eBook #65592]</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Tim Lindell, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)</div> - -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FLOWER OF OLD JAPAN ***</div> -<hr class="full" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/cover.jpg"> -<img src="images/cover.jpg" height="500" alt="[Image -of the book's cover is unavailable.]" /></a> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_i" id="page_i">{i}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_ii" id="page_ii">{ii}</a></span> </p> - -<p class="c">THE FLOWER OF OLD JAPAN</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_iii" id="page_iii">{iii}</a></span> </p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<img src="images/colophon.png" width="150" alt="" title="" /> -</div> - -<h1>THE FLOWER OF OLD<br /> -JAPAN</h1> - -<p class="c">AND OTHER POEMS<br /> -<br /> -BY<br /> -ALFRED NOYES<br /> -<br /><br /> -<span class="eng">New York</span><br /> -THE MACMILLAN COMPANY<br /> -LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., <span class="smcap">Ltd.</span><br /> -1907<br /> -<br /> -<i>All rights reserved</i><br /> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_iv" id="page_iv">{iv}</a></span> -<br /><br /><br /> -<small><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1907,<br /> -By</span> THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.<br /> -<br /> -Set up and electrotyped. Published June, 1907.<br /> -<br /> -<br /><span class="eng"> -Norwood Press</span><br /> -J. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.<br /> -Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.<br /></small> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_v" id="page_v">{v}</a></span></p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">‘O ciel! toute la Chine est par terre en morceaux!<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Ce vase pâle et doux comme un reflet des eaux,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Couvert d’oiseaux, de fleurs, de fruits, et des mensonges<br /></span> -<span class="i1">De ce vague idéal qui sort du bleu des songes,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Ce vase unique, étrange, impossible, engourdi,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Gardant sur lui le clair de lune en plein midi,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Qui paraissait vivant, où luisait une flamme,<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Qui semblait presque un monstre et semblait presque une âme.’<br /></span> -<span class="i7">—<span class="smcap">Victor Hugo</span> (<i>Le Pot Cassé</i>).<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_vii" id="page_vii">{vii}</a></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_vi" id="page_vi">{vi}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<p class="cbig"> -<img src="images/carol.png" -width="175" -alt="To= -CAROL= -A Little Maiden= -of Miyako" /></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_viii" id="page_viii">{viii}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_ix" id="page_ix">{ix}</a></span> </p> - -<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE</h2> - -<p><span class="smcap">It</span> is a perilous adventure—the writing of a preface, however brief, to -one’s own poems. For one may be tempted to re-state matters that could -find their full elucidation only in the verses themselves. Tennyson once -remarked that poetry is like shot silk, glancing with many colours; and -any attempt to define its meanings is as great a mistake as the attempt -of nineteenth-century materialism to enclose the infinite universe in -its logical nut-shells. Through poetry alone, whether of deeds or words, -thought or colour, passion or marble, is it possible to approach the -Infinite, or as Blake did:—</p> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">‘To see a world in a grain of sand,<br /></span> -<span class="i3">A heaven in a wild flower;<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,<br /></span> -<span class="i3">And Eternity in an hour.’<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<p class="nind">But this revelation is the sole end and object of all true art; and I -hope it may not be<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_x" id="page_x">{x}</a></span> thought presumptuous to say here simply -that—whether the attempt be a success or a failure—it was especially -my own aim in the two following poems. If the feet of childhood are set -dancing in them, it was because as children we are best able to enter -into that Kingdom of Dreams which is also the only true, the only real, -Kingdom. The first tale, for instance, must not be taken to have any -real relation to Japan. It belongs—as the <i>Spectator</i> put it—to the -kind of dreamland which an imaginative child might construct out of the -oddities of a willow-pattern plate, and it differs chiefly from -Wonderlands of the Lewis Carrol type in a certain seriousness behind its -fantasy. It is astonishing to me that these things require comment; but -undoubtedly they do. For, on the one hand, the first tale has been -praised enthusiastically as a vivid picture of Japan, and the author has -not only had to correspond with Tokyo on the subject, but was also -invited to meetings of the Japan Society in London! On the other hand, -because the child-voices are allowed to declare that Tusitala lies -asleep in that distant country of dreams, a prosaic English critic once -wrote a lengthy review in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_xi" id="page_xi">{xi}</a></span> an important paper to point out my gross -ignorance of the fact that Stevenson was really buried in Samoa! The -tales are ‘such stuff as dreams are made on’; but—as a kinder critic -has remarked—‘we ourselves are made of that stuff.’ It is perhaps -because these poems are almost light enough for a nonsense-book that I -feel there is something in them more elemental, more essential, more -worthy of serious consideration, than the most ponderous philosophical -poem I could write. They are based on the fundamental and very simple -mystery of the universe—that anything, even a grain of sand, should -exist at all. If we could understand that, we could understand -everything! Set clear of all irrelevancies, that is the simple problem -that has been puzzling all the ages; and it is well sometimes to forget -our accumulated ‘knowledge’ and return to it in all its childish -<i>naïveté</i>. It is well to face that inconceivable miracle, that -fundamental impossibility which happens to have been possible, that -contradiction in terms, that fundamental paradox, for which we have at -best only a cruciform symbol, with its arms pointing in opposite<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_xii" id="page_xii">{xii}</a></span> -directions and postulating, at once, an infinite God.</p> - -<p>The inscription on the “Wisdom Looking-Glass”; the discovery by the -children that the self-limitation of their little wishes was necessary -not only to their own happiness, but to the harmony of the whole world; -the development of the same idea in the passages leading up to the -song—<i>What does it take to make a rose?</i>—where a <i>divine</i> act of -loving self-limitation, an eternal self-sacrifice, an everlasting -passion of the Godhead, such as perhaps was shadowed forth on Calvary, -is found to be at the heart of the Universe, and to be—as it were—the -highest aspect of the Paradox aforesaid, the living secret and price of -our very existence; these things are only one twisted strand of the -‘shot silk’ out of which the two tales are woven. It is no new wisdom to -regard these things through the eyes of little children; and I -know—however insignificant they may be to others—these two tales -contain as deep and true things as I, personally, have the power to -express. I hope, therefore, that I may be pardoned, in these hurried -days, for pointing out that the two poems are not to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_xiii" id="page_xiii">{xiii}</a></span> taken merely as -fairy-tales, but as an attempt to follow the careless and happy feet of -childhood back into the kingdom of those dreams which, as we said above, -are the sole reality worth living and dying for; those beautiful dreams, -or those fantastic jests—if any care to call them so—for which mankind -has endured so many triumphant martyrdoms that even amidst the rush and -roar of modern materialism they cannot be quite forgotten.</p> - -<p class="r"> -ALFRED NOYES.<br /> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_xiv" id="page_xiv">{xiv}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="PERSONS_OF_THE_TALE" id="PERSONS_OF_THE_TALE"></a>PERSONS OF THE TALE</h2> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> -<tr><td class="pdd"><span class="smcap">Ourselves.</span></td></tr> -<tr><td class="pdd"><span class="smcap">The Tall Thin Man.</span></td></tr> -<tr><td class="pdd"><span class="smcap">The Dwarf behind the Twisted Pear-tree.</span></td></tr> -<tr><td class="pdd"><span class="smcap">Creeping Sin.</span></td></tr> -<tr><td class="pdd"><span class="smcap">The Mad Moonshee.</span></td></tr> -<tr><td class="pdd"><span class="smcap">The Nameless One.</span></td></tr> -<tr><td class="pdd">Pirates, Mandarins, Bonzes, Priests, Jugglers, Merchants, Ghastroi, Weirdrians, etc.</td></tr> -</table> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_xv" id="page_xv">{xv}</a></span> </p> - -<h2>PRELUDE</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">You</span> that have known the wonder zone<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of islands far away;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You that have heard the dinky bird<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And roamed in rich Cathay;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You that have sailed o’er unknown seas<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To woods of Amfalula trees<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Where craggy dragons play:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Oh, girl or woman, boy or man,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You’ve plucked the Flower of Old Japan!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Do you remember the blue stream;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The bridge of pale bamboo;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The path that seemed a twisted dream<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Where everything came true;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The purple cherry-trees; the house<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_xvi" id="page_xvi">{xvi}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">With jutting eaves below the boughs;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The mandarins in blue,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With tiny, tapping, tilted toes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And curious curved mustachios?<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>The road to Old Japan!</i> you cry,<br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>And is it far or near?</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some never find it till they die;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Some find it everywhere;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The road where restful Time forgets<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His weary thoughts and wild regrets<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And calls the golden year<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Back in a fairy dream to smile<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On young and old a little while.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Some seek it with a blazing sword,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And some with old blue plates;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some with a miser’s golden hoard;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Some with a book of dates;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Some with a box of paints; a few<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_xvii" id="page_xvii">{xvii}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose loads of truth would ne’er pass through<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The first, white, fairy gates;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, oh, how shocked they are to find<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That truths are false when left behind!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Do you remember all the tales<br /></span> -<span class="i2">That Tusitala told,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When first we plunged thro’ purple vales<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In quest of buried gold?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Do you remember how he said<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That if we fell and hurt our head<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Our hearts must still be bold,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And we must never mind the pain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But rise up and go on again?<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Do you remember? yes; I know<br /></span> -<span class="i2">You must remember still:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He left us, not so long ago,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Carolling with a will,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Because he knew that he should lie<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_xviii" id="page_xviii">{xviii}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Under the comfortable sky<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Upon a lonely hill,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In Old Japan, when day was done;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">“Dear Robert Louis Stevenson.”<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And there he knew that he should find<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The hills that haunt us now;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The whaups that cried upon the wind<br /></span> -<span class="i2">His heart remembered how;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And friends he loved and left, to roam<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Far from the pleasant hearth of home,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Should touch his dreaming brow;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where fishes fly and birds have fins,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And children teach the mandarins.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Ah, let us follow, follow far<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Beyond the purple seas;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beyond the rosy foaming bar,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The coral reef, the trees,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The land of parrots, and the wild<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_xix" id="page_xix">{xix}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">That rolls before the fearless child<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Its ancient mysteries:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Onward and onward, if we can,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To Old Japan—to Old Japan.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_1" id="page_1">{1}</a></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_xx" id="page_xx">{xx}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2>PART I<br /><br /> -EMBARKATION</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">When</span> the firelight, red and clear,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Flutters in the black wet pane,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It is very good to hear<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Howling winds and trotting rain:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It is very good indeed,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">When the nights are dark and cold,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Near the friendly hearth to read<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Tales of ghosts and buried gold.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">So with cosy toes and hands<br /></span> -<span class="i2">We were dreaming, just like you;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till we thought of palmy lands<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Coloured like a cockatoo;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All in drowsy nursery nooks<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Near the clutching fire we sat,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_2" id="page_2">{2}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Searching quaint old story-books<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Piled upon the furry mat.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Something haunted us that night<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Like a half-remembered name;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Worn old pages in that light<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Seemed the same, yet not the same:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Curling in the pleasant heat<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Smoothly as a shell-shaped fan,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O! they breathed and smelt so sweet<br /></span> -<span class="i2">When we turned to Old Japan!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Suddenly we thought we heard<br /></span> -<span class="i1">Someone tapping on the wall,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tapping, tapping like a bird,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Till a panel seemed to fall<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Quietly; and a tall thin man<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Stepped into the glimmering room,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And he held a little fan,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And he waved it in the gloom.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_3" id="page_3">{3}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Curious reds, and golds, and greens<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Danced before our startled eyes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Birds from painted Indian screens,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Beads, and shells, and dragon-flies;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wings, and flowers, and scent, and flame,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Fans and fish and heliotrope;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till the magic air became<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Like a dream kaleidoscope.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Then he told us of a land<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Far across a fairy sea;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And he waved his thin white hand<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Like a flower, melodiously;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While a red and blue macaw<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Perched upon his pointed head,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And as in a dream, we saw<br /></span> -<span class="i2">All the curious things he said.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Tucked in tiny palanquins,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Magically swinging there,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_4" id="page_4">{4}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Flowery-kirtled mandarins<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Floated through the scented air;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wandering dogs and prowling cats<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Grinned at fish in painted lakes;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Cross-legged conjurers on mats<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Fluted low to listening snakes.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Fat black bonzes on the shore<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Watched where singing, faint and far,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Boys in long blue garments bore<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Roses in a golden jar.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While at carven dragon ships<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Floating o’er that silent sea,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Squat-limbed gods with dreadful lips<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Leered and smiled mysteriously.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Like an idol, shrined alone,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Watched by secret oval eyes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where the ruby wishing-stone<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Smouldering in the darkness lies,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_5" id="page_5">{5}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Anyone that wanted things<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Touched the jewel and they came:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We were wealthier than kings<br /></span> -<span class="i2">If we could but do the same.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Yes; we knew a hundred ways<br /></span> -<span class="i2">We might use it if we could;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To be happy all our days<br /></span> -<span class="i2">As an Indian in a wood;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No more daily lesson task,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">No more sorrow, no more care;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So we thought that we would ask<br /></span> -<span class="i2">If he’d kindly lead us there.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Ah! but then he waved his fan,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And he vanished through the wall;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet as in a dream, we ran<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Tumbling after, one and all;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Never pausing once to think,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Panting after him we sped;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_6" id="page_6">{6}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">For we saw his robe of pink<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Floating backward as he fled.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Down a secret passage deep,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Under roofs of spidery stairs,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where the bat-winged nightmares creep,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And a sheeted phantom glares<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Rushed we; ah! how strange it was<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Where no human watcher stood;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till we reached a gate of glass<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Opening on a flowery wood.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Where the rose-pink robe had flown,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Borne by swifter feet than ours,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On to Wonder-Wander town,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Through the wood of monstrous flowers;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mailed in monstrous gold and blue<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Dragon-flies like peacocks fled;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Butterflies like carpets, too,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Softly fluttered overhead.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_7" id="page_7">{7}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Down the valley, tip-a-toe,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Where the broad-limbed giants lie<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Snoring, as when long ago<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Jack on a bean-stalk scaled the sky;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Slowly, softly towards the town<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Stole we past old dreams again,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Castles long since battered down,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Dungeons of forgotten pain.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Noonday brooded on the wood,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Evening caught us ere we crept<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where a twisted pear-tree stood,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And a dwarf behind it slept;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Round his scraggy throat he wore,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Knotted tight, a scarlet scarf;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Timidly we watched him snore,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">For he seemed a surly dwarf.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Yet, he looked so very small,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">He could hardly hurt us much;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_8" id="page_8">{8}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">We were nearly twice as tall,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">So we woke him with a touch<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Gently, and in tones polite,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Asked him to direct our path;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O! his wrinkled eyes grew bright<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Green with ugly gnomish wrath.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">He seemed to choke,<br /></span> -<span class="i6">And gruffly spoke,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">“You’re lost: deny it, if you can!<br /></span> -<span class="i6">You want to know<br /></span> -<span class="i6">The way to go?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There’s no such place as Old Japan.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">“You want to seek—<br /></span> -<span class="i6">No, no, don’t speak!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You mean you want to steal a fan.<br /></span> -<span class="i6">You want to see<br /></span> -<span class="i6">The fields of tea?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They don’t grow tea in Old Japan.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_9" id="page_9">{9}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">“In China, well<br /></span> -<span class="i6">Perhaps you’d smell<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The cherry bloom: that’s if you ran<br /></span> -<span class="i6">A million miles<br /></span> -<span class="i6">And jumped the stiles,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And never dreamed of Old Japan.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">“What, palanquins,<br /></span> -<span class="i6">And mandarins?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, what d’you say, a blue divan?<br /></span> -<span class="i6">And what? Hee! hee!<br /></span> -<span class="i6">You’ll never see<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A pig-tailed head in Old Japan.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">“You’d take away<br /></span> -<span class="i6">The ruby, hey?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I never heard of such a plan!<br /></span> -<span class="i6">Upon my word<br /></span> -<span class="i6">It’s quite absurd<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There’s not a gem in Old Japan!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_10" id="page_10">{10}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6">“Oh, dear me, no!<br /></span> -<span class="i6">You’d better go<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Straight home again, my little man:<br /></span> -<span class="i6">Ah, well, you’ll see<br /></span> -<span class="i6">But don’t blame me;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I don’t believe in Old Japan.”<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Then, before we could obey,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">O’er our startled heads he cast,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Spider-like, a webby grey<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Net that held us prisoned fast;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How we screamed, he only grinned,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">It was such a lonely place;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And he said we should be pinned<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In his human beetle-case.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Out he dragged a monstrous box<br /></span> -<span class="i2">From a cave behind the tree!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It had four-and-twenty locks,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But he could not find the key,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_11" id="page_11">{11}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">And his face grew very pale<br /></span> -<span class="i2">When a sudden voice began<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Drawing nearer through the vale,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Singing songs of Old Japan.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h2><span class="smcap">Song</span></h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Satin sails in a crimson dawn</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Over the silky silver sea;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Purple veils of the dark withdrawn;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Heavens of pearl and porphyry;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Purple and white in the morning light</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Over the water the town we knew,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>In tiny state, like a willow-plate,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Shone, and behind it the hills were blue.</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>There, we remembered, the shadows pass</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>All day long like dreams in the night;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>There, in the meadows of dim blue grass,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Crimson daisies are ringed with white;</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_12" id="page_12">{12}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>There the roses flutter their petals,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Over the meadows they take their flight,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>There the moth that sleepily settles</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Turns to a flower in the warm soft light.</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>There when the sunset colours the streets</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Everyone buys at wonderful stalls</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Toys and chocolates, guns and sweets,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Ivory pistols, and Persian shawls:</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Everyone’s pockets are crammed with gold;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Nobody’s heart is worn with care,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Nobody ever grows tired and old,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>And nobody calls you “Baby” there.</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>There with a hat like a round white dish</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Upside down on each pig-tailed head,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Jugglers offer you snakes and fish,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Dreams and dragons and gingerbread;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Beautiful books with marvellous pictures,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Painted pirates and streaming gore,</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_13" id="page_13">{13}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>And everyone reads, without any strictures,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Tales he remembers for evermore.</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>There when the dim blue daylight lingers</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Listening, and the West grows holy,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Singers crouch with their long white fingers</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Floating over the zithern slowly:</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Paper lamps with a peachy bloom</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Burn above on the dim blue bough,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>While the zitherns gild the gloom</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>With curious music! I hear it now!</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Now</i>: and at that mighty word<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Holding out his magic fan,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Through the waving flowers appeared,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Suddenly, the tall thin man:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And we saw the crumpled dwarf<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Trying to hide behind the tree,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But his knotted scarlet scarf<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Made him very plain to see.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_14" id="page_14">{14}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Like a soft and smoky cloud<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Passed the webby net away;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While its owner squealing loud<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Down behind the pear-tree lay;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For the tall thin man came near,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And his words were dark and gruff,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And he swung the dwarf in the air<br /></span> -<span class="i2">By his long and scraggy scruff.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">There he kickled whimpering.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But our rescuer touched the box,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Open with a sudden spring<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Clashed the four-and-twenty locks;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then he crammed the dwarf inside,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And the locks all clattered tight:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Four-and-twenty times he tried<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Whether they were fastened right.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Ah, he led us on our road,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Showed us Wonder-Wander town;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_15" id="page_15">{15}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then he fled: behind him flowed<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Once again the rose-pink gown:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Down the long deserted street,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">All the windows winked like eyes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And our little trotting feet<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Echoed to the starry skies.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Low and long for evermore<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Where the Wonder-Wander sea<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whispers to the wistful shore<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Purple songs of mystery,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Down the shadowy quay we came—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Though it hides behind the hill<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You will find it just the same<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And the seamen singing still.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">There we chose a ship of pearl,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And her milky silken sail<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Seemed by magic to unfurl,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Puffed before a fairy gale;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_16" id="page_16">{16}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shimmering o’er the purple deep,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Out across the silvery bar,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Softly as the wings of sleep<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Sailed we towards the morning star.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Over us the skies were dark,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Yet we never needed light;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Softly shone our tiny bark<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Gliding through the solemn night;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Softly bright our moony gleam,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Glimmered o’er the glistening waves,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like a cold sea-maiden’s dream<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Globed in twilit ocean caves.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">So all night our shallop passed<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Many a haunt of old desire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Blurs of savage blossom massed<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Red above a pirate-fire;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Huts that gloomed and glanced among<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Fruitage dipping in the blue;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_17" id="page_17">{17}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Songs the sirens never sung,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Shores Ulysses never knew.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">All our fairy rigging shone<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Richly as a rainbow seen<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where the moonlight floats upon<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Gossamers of gold and green:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All the tiny spars were bright;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Beaten gold the bowsprit was;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But our pilot was the night,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And our chart a looking-glass.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_18" id="page_18">{18}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2>PART II<br /><br /> -THE ARRIVAL</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">With</span> rosy finger-tips the Dawn<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Drew back the silver veils,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till lilac shimmered into lawn<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Above the satin sails;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And o’er the waters, white and wan,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In tiny patterned state,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We saw the streets of Old Japan<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Shine, like a willow plate.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">O, many a milk-white pigeon roams<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The purple cherry crops,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The mottled miles of pearly domes,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And blue pagoda tops,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The river with its golden canes<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And dark piratic dhows,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_19" id="page_19">{19}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">To where beyond the twisting vanes<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The burning mountain glows.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">A snow-peak in the silver skies<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Beyond that magic world,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We saw the great volcano rise<br /></span> -<span class="i2">With incense o’er it curled,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose tiny thread of rose and blue<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Has risen since time began,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Before the first enchanter knew<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The peak of Old Japan.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Nobody watched us quietly steer<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The pinnace to the painted pier,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Except one pig-tailed mandarin,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who sat upon a chest of tea<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pretending not to hear or see!...<br /></span> -<span class="i2">His hands were very long and thin,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_20" id="page_20">{20}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">His face was very broad and white;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And O, it was a fearful sight<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To see him sit alone and grin!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">His grin was very sleek and sly:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Timidly we passed him by!<br /></span> -<span class="i2">He did not seem at all to care:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So, thinking we were safely past,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We ventured to look back at last.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">O, dreadful blank!—<i>He was not there!</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0">He must have hid behind his chest:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We did not stay to see the rest.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">But, as in reckless haste we ran,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We came upon the tall thin man,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who called to us and waved his fan,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And offered us his palanquin:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He said we must not go alone<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To seek the ruby wishing-stone,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Because the white-faced mandarin<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_21" id="page_21">{21}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Would dog our steps for many a mile,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sit upon each purple stile<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Before we came to it, and smile<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And smile; his name was Creeping Sin.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">He played with children’s beating hearts,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And stuck them full of poisoned darts<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And long green thorns that stabbed and stung:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He’d watch until we tried to speak,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then thrust inside his pasty cheek<br /></span> -<span class="i2">His long, white, slimy tongue:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And smile at everything we said;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sometimes pat us on the head,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And say that we were very young:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He was a cousin of the man<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who said that there was no Japan.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And night and day this Creeping Sin<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Would follow the path of the palanquin;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Yet if we still were fain to touch<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_22" id="page_22">{22}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">The ruby, we must have no fear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whatever we might see or hear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the tall thin man would take us there;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">He did not fear that Sly One much,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Except perhaps on a moonless night,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor even then if the stars were bright.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">So, in the yellow palankeen<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We swung along in state between<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Twinkling domes of gold and green<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Through the rich bazaar,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where the cross-legged merchants sat,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Old and almond-eyed and fat,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Each upon a gorgeous mat,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Each in a cymar;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Each in crimson samite breeches,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Watching his barbaric riches.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Cherry blossom breathing sweet<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_23" id="page_23">{23}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whispered o’er the dim blue street<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where with fierce uncertain feet<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Tawny pirates walk:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All in belts and baggy blouses,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Out of dreadful opium houses,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Out of dens where Death carouses,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Horribly they stalk;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Girt with ataghan and dagger,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Right across the road they swagger.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And where the cherry orchards blow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We saw the maids of Miyako,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Swaying softly to and fro<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Through the dimness of the dance:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like sweet thoughts that shine through dreams<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They glided, wreathing rosy gleams,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With stately sounds of silken streams,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And many a slim kohl-lidded glance;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then fluttered with tiny rose-bud feet<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_24" id="page_24">{24}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">To a soft <i>frou-frou</i> and a rhythmic beat<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As the music shimmered, pursuit, retreat,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">“Hands across, retire, advance!”<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And again it changed and the glimmering throng<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Faded into a distant song.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h2><span class="smcap">Song</span></h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>The maidens of Miyako</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Dance in the sunset hours,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Deep in the sunset glow,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Under the cherry flowers.</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>With dreamy hands of pearl</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Floating like butterflies,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Dimly the dancers whirl</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>As the rose light dies;</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>And their floating gowns, their hair</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Upbound with curious pins,</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_25" id="page_25">{25}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Fade thro’ the darkening air</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>With the dancing mandarins.</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And then, as we went, the tall thin man<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Explained the manners of Old Japan;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">If you pitied a thing, you pretended to sneer;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet if you were glad you ran to buy<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A captive pigeon and let it fly;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And, if you were sad, you took a spear<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To wound yourself, for fear your pain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Should quietly grow less again.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And, again he said, if we wished to find<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The mystic City that enshrined<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The stone so few on earth had found,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We must be very brave; it lay<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A hundred haunted leagues away,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Past many a griffon-guarded ground,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In depths of dark and curious art,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_26" id="page_26">{26}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where passion-flowers enfold apart<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Temple of the Flaming Heart,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The City of the Secret Wound.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">About the fragrant fall of day<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We saw beside the twisted way<br /></span> -<span class="i2">A blue-domed tea-house, bossed with gold;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hungry and thirsty we entered in:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How should we know what Creeping Sin<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Had breathed in that Emperor’s ear who sold<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His own dumb soul for an evil jewel<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To the earth-gods, blind and ugly and cruel?...<br /></span> -<span class="i2">We drank sweet tea as his tale was told,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In a garden of blue chrysanthemums,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While a drowsy swarming of gongs and drums<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Out of the sunset dreamily rolled.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">But, as the murmur nearer drew,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A fat black bonze, in a robe of blue,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Suddenly at the gate appeared;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_27" id="page_27">{27}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">And close behind, with that evil grin,<br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Was it Creeping Sin, was it Creeping Sin?</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2">The bonze looked quietly down and sneered.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Our guide! Was he sleeping? We could not wake him,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">However we tried to pinch and shake him!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Nearer, nearer the tumult came,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till, as a glare of sound and flame,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Blind from a terrible furnace door<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Blares, or the mouth of a dragon, blazed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The seething gateway: deaf and dazed<br /></span> -<span class="i2">With the clanging and the wild uproar<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We stood; while a thousand oval eyes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Gapped our fear with a sick surmise.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Then, as the dead sea parted asunder,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The clamour clove with a sound of thunder<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In two great billows; and all was quiet.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Gaunt and black was the palankeen<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_28" id="page_28">{28}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">That came in dreadful state between<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The frozen waves of the wild-eyed riot<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Curling back from the breathless track<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of the Nameless One who is never seen:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The close drawn curtains were thick and black;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But wizen and white was the tall thin man<br /></span> -<span class="i2">As he rose in his sleep:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His eyes were closed, his lips were wan,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He crouched like a leopard that dares not leap.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The bearers halted: the tall thin man,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fearfully dreaming, waved his fan,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">With wizard fingers, to and fro;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While, with a whimper of evil glee,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The Nameless Emperor’s mad Moonshee<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Stepped in front of us: dark and slow<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were the words of the doom that he dared not name;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, over the ground, as he spoke, there came<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_29" id="page_29">{29}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tiny circles of soft blue flame;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Like ghosts of flowers they began to glow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And flow like a moonlit brook between<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Our feet and the terrible palankeen.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">But the Moonshee wrinkled his long thin eyes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And sneered, “Have you stolen the strength of the skies?<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Then pour before us a stream of pearl!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Give us the pearl and the gold we know,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And our hearts will be softened and let you go;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But these are toys for a foolish girl—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">These vanishing blossoms—what are they worth?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They are not so heavy as dust and earth:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Pour before us a stream of pearl!”<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Then, with a wild strange laugh, our guide<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stretched his arms to the West and cried<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Once, and a song came over the sea;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_30" id="page_30">{30}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all the blossoms of moon-soft fire<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Woke and breathed as a wind-swept lyre,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And the garden surged into harmony;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till it seemed that the soul of the whole world sung,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And every petal became a tongue<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To tell the thoughts of Eternity.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">But the Moonshee lifted his painted brows<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And stared at the gold on the blue tea-house:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">“Can you clothe your body with dreams?” he sneered;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">“If you taught us the truths that we always know<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Our heart might be softened and let you go:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Can you tell us the length of a monkey’s beard,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or the weight of the gems on the Emperor’s fan,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or the number of parrots in Old Japan?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_31" id="page_31">{31}</a></span>”<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And again, with a wild strange laugh, our guide<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Looked at him; and he shrunk aside,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Shrivelling like a flame-touched leaf;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For the red-cross blossoms of soft blue fire<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were growing and fluttering higher and higher,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Shaking their petals out, sheaf by sheaf,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till with disks like shields and stems like towers<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Burned the host of the passion-flowers<br /></span> -<span class="i0">... Had the Moonshee flown like a midnight thief?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">... Yet a thing like a monkey, shrivelled and black,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Chattered and danced as they forced him back.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">As the coward chatters for empty pride,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In the face of a foe that he cannot but fear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It chattered and leapt from side to side,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And its voice rang strangely upon the ear.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_32" id="page_32">{32}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">As the cry of a wizard that dares not own<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Another’s brighter and mightier throne;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As the wrath of a fool that rails aloud<br /></span> -<span class="i2">On the fire that burnt him; the brazen bray<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Clamoured and sang o’er the gaping crowd,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And flapped like a gabbling goose away.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="The_Cry_of_the_Mad_Moonshee" id="The_Cry_of_the_Mad_Moonshee"></a><span class="smcap">The Cry of the Mad Moonshee</span></h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i6"><i>If the blossoms were beans,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i6"><i>I should know what it means—</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>This blaze, which I certainly cannot endure;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i6"><i>It is evil, too,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i6"><i>For its colour is blue,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>And the sense of the matter is quite obscure.</i><br /></span> -<span class="i6"><i>Celestial truth</i><br /></span> -<span class="i6"><i>Is the food of youth;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>But the music was dark as a moonless night.</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_33" id="page_33">{33}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i6"><i>The facts in the song</i><br /></span> -<span class="i6"><i>Were all of them wrong,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>And there was not a single sum done right;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Tho’ a metaphysician amongst the crowd,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>In a voice that was notably deep and loud,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Repeated, as fast as he was able,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>The whole of the multiplication table.</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">So the cry flapped off as a wild goose flies,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the stars came out in the trembling skies,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And ever the mystic glory grew<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In the garden of blue chrysanthemums,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till there came a rumble of distant drums;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And the multitude suddenly turned and flew.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">... A dead ape lay where their feet had been ...<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And we called for the yellow palankeen,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And the flowers divided and let us through.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_34" id="page_34">{34}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">The black-barred moon was large and low<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When we came to the Forest of Ancient Woe;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And over our heads the stars were bright.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But through the forest the path we travelled<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Its phosphorescent aisle unravelled<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In one thin ribbon of dwindling light:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And twice and thrice on the fainting track<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We paused to listen. The moon grew black,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But the coolies’ faces glimmered white,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As the wild woods echoed in dreadful chorus<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A laugh that came horribly hopping o’er us<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Like monstrous frogs thro’ the murky night.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Then the tall thin man as we swung along<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sang us an old enchanted song<br /></span> -<span class="i2">That lightened our hearts of their fearful load.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, e’en as the moonlit air grew sweet,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We heard the pad of stealthy feet<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Dogging us down the thin white road;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_35" id="page_35">{35}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the song grew weary again and harsh,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the black trees dripped like the fringe of a marsh,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And a laugh crept out like a shadowy toad;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And we knew it was neither ghoul nor djinn:<br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>It was Creeping Sin! It was Creeping Sin!</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">But we came to a bend, and the white moon glowed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like a gate at the end of the narrowing road<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Far away; and on either hand,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As guards of a path to the heart’s desire,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The strange tall blossoms of soft blue fire<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Stretched away thro’ that unknown land,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">League on league with their dwindling lane<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Down to the large low moon; and again<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There shimmered around us that mystical strain,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In a tongue that it seemed we could understand.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_36" id="page_36">{36}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><span class="smcap">Song</span></h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Hold by right and rule by fear</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Till the slowly broadening sphere</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Melting through the skies above</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Merge into the sphere of love.</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Hold by might until you find</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Might is powerless o’er the mind:</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Hold by Truth until you see,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Though they bow before the wind,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Its towers can mock at liberty.</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Time, the seneschal, is blind;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Time is blind: and what are we?</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Captives of Infinity,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Claiming through Truth’s prison bars</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Kinship with the wandering stars.</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_37" id="page_37">{37}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">O, who could tell the wild weird sights<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We saw in all the days and nights<br /></span> -<span class="i2">We travelled through those forests old.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We saw the griffons on white cliffs,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Among fantastic hieroglyphs,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Guarding enormous heaps of gold:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We saw the Ghastroi—curious men<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who dwell, like tigers, in a den,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And howl whene’er the moon is cold;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They stripe themselves with red and black<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And ride upon the yellow Yak.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Their dens are always ankle-deep<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With twisted knives, and in their sleep<br /></span> -<span class="i2">They often cut themselves; they say<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That if you wish to live in peace<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The surest way is not to cease<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Collecting knives; and never a day<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Can pass, unless they buy a few;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_38" id="page_38">{38}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">And as their enemies buy them too<br /></span> -<span class="i2">They all avert the impending fray,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And starve their children and their wives<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To buy the necessary knives.<br /></span> -<span class="iast">* * * * *<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The forest leapt with shadowy shapes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As we came to the great black Tower of Apes:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But we gave them purple figs and grapes<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In alabaster amphoras:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We gave them curious kinds of fruit<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With betel nuts and orris-root,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And then they let us pass:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And when we reached the Tower of Snakes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We gave them soft white honey-cakes,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And warm sweet milk in bowls of brass:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And on the hundredth eve we found<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The City of the Secret Wound.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_39" id="page_39">{39}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">We saw the mystic blossoms blow<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Round the City, far below;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Faintly in the sunset glow<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We saw the soft blue glory flow<br /></span> -<span class="i2">O’er many a golden garden gate:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And o’er the tiny dark green seas<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of tamarisks and tulip-trees,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Domes like golden oranges<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Dream aloft elate.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And clearer, clearer as we went,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We heard from tower and battlement<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A whisper, like a warning, sent<br /></span> -<span class="i2">From watchers out of sight;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And clearer, brighter, as we drew<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Close to the walls, we saw the blue<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Flashing of plumes where peacocks flew<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Thro’ zones of pearly light.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_40" id="page_40">{40}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">On either side, a fat black bonze<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Guarded the gates of red-wrought bronze,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Blazoned with blue sea-dragons<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And mouths of yawning flame;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Down the road of dusty red,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though their brown feet ached and bled,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Our coolies went with joyful tread:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like living fans the gates outspread<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And opened as we came.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_41" id="page_41">{41}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2>PART III<br /><br /> -THE MYSTIC RUBY</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">The</span> white moon dawned; the sunset died;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And stars were trembling when we spied<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The rose-red temple of our dreams:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Its lamp-lit gardens glimmered cool<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With many an onyx-paven pool,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Amid soft sounds of flowing streams;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where star-shine shimmered through the white<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tall fountain-shafts of crystal light<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In ever changing rainbow-gleams.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Priests in flowing yellow robes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Glided under rosy globes;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Through the green pomegranate boughs<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Moonbeams poured their coloured rain;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_42" id="page_42">{42}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Roofs of sea-green porcelain<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Jutted o’er the rose-red house;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bells were hung beneath its eaves;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Every wind that stirred the leaves<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Tinkled as tired water does.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The temple had a low broad base<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of black bright marble; all its face<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Was marble bright in rosy bloom;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And where two sea-green pillars rose<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Deep in the flower-soft eave-shadows<br /></span> -<span class="i2">We saw, thro’ richly sparkling gloom,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Wrought in marvellous years of old<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With bulls and peacocks bossed in gold,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The doors of powdered lacquer loom.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Quietly then the tall thin man,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Holding his turquoise-tinted fan,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Alighted from the palanquin;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_43" id="page_43">{43}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">We followed: never painter dreamed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of how that dark rich temple gleamed<br /></span> -<span class="i2">With gules of jewelled gloom within;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And as we wondered near the door<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A priest came o’er the polished floor<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In sandals of soft serpent-skin;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His mitre shimmered bright and blue<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With pigeon’s breast-plumes. When he knew<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Our quest he stroked his broad white chin,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And looked at us with slanting eyes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And smiled; then through his deep disguise<br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>We knew him! It was Creeping Sin!</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">But cunningly he bowed his head<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Down on his gilded breast and said<br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Come</i>: and he led us through the dusk<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of passages whose painted walls<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_44" id="page_44">{44}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Gleamed with dark old festivals;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Till where the gloom grew sweet with musk<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And incense, through a door of amber<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We came into a high-arched chamber.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">There on a throne of jasper sat<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A monstrous idol, black and fat;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Thick rose-oil dropped upon its head:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Drop by drop, heavy and sweet,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Trickled down to its ebon feet<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Whereon the blood of goats was shed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And smeared around its perfumed knees<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In savage midnight mysteries.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">It wore about its bulging waist<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A belt of dark green bronze enchased<br /></span> -<span class="i2">With big, soft, cloudy pearls; its wrists<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were clasped about with moony gems<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Gathered from dead kings’ diadems;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Its throat was ringed with amethysts,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_45" id="page_45">{45}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">And in its awful hand it held<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A softly smouldering emerald.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Silkily murmured Creeping Sin,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">“This is the stone you wished to win!”<br /></span> -<span class="i2">“White Snake,” replied the tall thin man,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">“Show us the Ruby Stone, or I<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Will slay thee with my hands.” The sly<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Long eyelids of the priest began<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To slant aside; and then once more<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He led us through the fragrant door.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And now along the passage walls<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were painted hideous animals,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">With hooded eyes and cloven stings:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In the incense that like shadowy hair<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Streamed over them they seemed to stir<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Their craggy claws and crooked wings.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_46" id="page_46">{46}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">At last we saw strange moon-wreaths curl<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Around a deep, soft porch of pearl.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">O, what enchanter wove in dreams<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That chapel wild with shadowy gleams<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And prismy colours of the moon?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shrined like a rainbow in a mist<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of flowers, the fretted amethyst<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Arches rose to a mystic tune;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And never mortal art inlaid<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Those cloudy floors of sea-soft jade.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">There, in the midst, an idol rose<br /></span> -<span class="i0">White as the silent starlit snows<br /></span> -<span class="i2">On lonely Himalayan heights:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Over its head the spikenard spilled<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Down to its feet, with myrrh distilled<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In distant, odorous Indian nights:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It held before its ivory face<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A flaming yellow chrysoprase.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_47" id="page_47">{47}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">O, silkily murmured Creeping Sin,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">“This is the stone you wished to win.”<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But in his ear the tall thin man<br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Whispered with slow, strange lips</i>—we knew<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Not what, but Creeping Sin went blue<br /></span> -<span class="i2">With fear; again his eyes began<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To slant aside; then through the porch<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He passed, and lit a tall, brown torch.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Down a corridor dark as death,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With beating hearts and bated breath<br /></span> -<span class="i2">We hurried; far away we heard<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A dreadful hissing, fierce as fire<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When rain begins to quench a pyre;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And where the smoky torch-light flared<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Strange vermin beat their bat-like wings,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the wet walls dropped with slimy things.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_48" id="page_48">{48}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And darker, darker, wound the way,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beyond all gleams of night and day,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And still that hideous hissing grew<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Louder and louder on our ears,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And tortured us with eyeless fears;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Then suddenly the gloom turned blue,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, in the wall, a rough rock cave<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Gaped, like a phosphorescent grave.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And from the purple mist within<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There came a wild tumultuous din<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of snakes that reared their heads and<br /></span> -<span class="i0">hissed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As if a witch’s cauldron boiled;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All round the door great serpents coiled,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">With eyes of glowing amethyst,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whose fierce blue flames began to slide<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like shooting stars from side to side.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_49" id="page_49">{49}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Ah! with a sickly gasping grin<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And quivering eyelids, Creeping Sin<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Stole to the cave; but, suddenly,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As through its glimmering mouth he passed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The serpents flashed and gripped him fast:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">He wriggled and gave one awful cry,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then all at once the cave was cleared;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The snakes with their victim had disappeared.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And fearlessly the tall thin man<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Opened his turquoise-tinted fan<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And entered; and the mists grew bright,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And we saw that the cave was a diamond hall<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lit with lamps for a festival.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">A myriad globes of coloured light<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Went gliding deep in its massy sides,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like the shimmering moons in the glassy tides<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Where a sea-king’s palace enchants the night.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_50" id="page_50">{50}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Gliding and flowing, a glory and wonder,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Through each other, and over, and under,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The lucent orbs of green and gold,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Bright with sorrow or soft with sleep,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In music through the glimmering deep,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Over their secret axles rolled,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And circled by the murmuring spheres<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We saw in a frame of frozen tears<br /></span> -<span class="i2">A mirror that made the blood run cold.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">For, when we came to it, we found<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It imaged everything around<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Except the face that gazed in it;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And where the mirrored face should be<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A heart-shaped Ruby fierily<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Smouldered; and round the frame was writ,<br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Mystery: Time and Tide shall pass,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>I am the Wisdom Looking-Glass.</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_51" id="page_51">{51}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>This is the Ruby none can touch:</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Many have loved it overmuch;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Its fathomless fires flutter and sigh,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Being as images of the flame</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>That shall make earth and heaven the same</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>When the fire of the end reddens the sky,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>And the world consumes like a burning pall,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Till where there is nothing, there is all.</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">So we looked up at the tall thin man<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And we saw that his face grew sad and wan:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Tears were glistening in his eyes:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At last, with a breaking sob, he bent<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His head upon his breast and went<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Swiftly away! With dreadful cries<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We rushed to the softly glimmering door<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And stared at the hideous corridor<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But his robe was gone as a dream that flies:<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_52" id="page_52">{52}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Back to the glass in terror we came,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And stared at the writing round the frame.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">We could not understand one word:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And suddenly we thought we heard<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The hissing of the snakes again:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How could we front them all alone?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O, madly we clutched at the mirrored stone<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And wished we were back on the flowery plain:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And swifter than thought and swift as fear<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The whole world flashed, and behold we were there.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Yes; there was the port of Old Japan,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With its twisted patterns, white and wan,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shining like a mottled fan<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Spread by the blue sea, faint and far;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And far away we heard once more<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_53" id="page_53">{53}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">A sound of singing on the shore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where boys in blue kimonos bore<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Roses in a golden jar:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And we heard, where the cherry orchards blow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The serpent-charmers fluting low,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the song of the maidens of Miyako.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And at our feet unbroken lay<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The glass that had whirled us thither away:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And in the grass, among the flowers<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We sat and wished all sorts of things:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O, we were wealthier than kings!<br /></span> -<span class="i2">We ruled the world for several hours!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And then, it seemed, we knew not why,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All the daisies began to die.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">We wished them alive again; but soon<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The trees all fled up towards the moon<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Like peacocks through the sunlit air:<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_54" id="page_54">{54}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the butterflies flapped into silver fish;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And each wish spoiled another wish;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Till we threw the glass down in despair;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For, getting whatever you want to get,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is like drinking tea from a fishing net.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">At last we thought we’d wish once more<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That all should be as it was before;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And then we’d shatter the glass, if we could;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But just as the world grew right again,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We heard a wanderer out on the plain<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Singing what none of us understood;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet we thought that the world grew thrice more sweet<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the meadows were blossoming under his feet.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And we felt a grand and beautiful fear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For we knew that a marvellous thought drew near;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">So we kept the glass for a little while:<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_55" id="page_55">{55}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the skies grew deeper and twice as bright,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the seas grew soft as a flower of light,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And the meadows rippled from stile to stile;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And memories danced in a musical throng<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thro’ the blossom that scented the wonderful song.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h2><span class="smcap">Song</span></h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>We sailed across the silver seas</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>And saw the sea-blue bowers,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>We saw the purple cherry trees,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>And all the foreign flowers,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>We travelled in a palanquin</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Beyond the caravan,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>And yet our hearts had never seen</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>The Flower of Old Japan.</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>The Flower above all other flowers,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>The Flower that never dies;</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_56" id="page_56">{56}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Before whose throne the scented hours</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Offer their sacrifice;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>The Flower that here on earth below</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Reveals the heavenly plan;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>But only little children know</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>The Flower of Old Japan.</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">There, in the dim blue flowery plain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We wished with the magic glass again<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To go to the Flower of the song’s desire:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And o’er us the whole of the soft blue sky<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Flashed like fire as the world went by,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And far beneath us the sea like fire<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Flashed in one swift blue brilliant stream,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the journey was done, like a change in a dream.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_57" id="page_57">{57}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2>PART IV<br /><br /> -THE END OF THE QUEST</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Like</span> the dawn upon a dream<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Slowly through the scented gloom<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Crept once more the ruddy gleam<br /></span> -<span class="i2">O’er the friendly nursery room.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There, before our waking eyes,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Large and ghostly, white and dim,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dreamed the Flower that never dies,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Opening wide its rosy rim.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Spreading like a ghostly fan,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Petals white as porcelain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There the Flower of Old Japan<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Told us we were home again;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_58" id="page_58">{58}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">For a soft and curious light<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Suddenly was o’er it shed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And we saw it was a white<br /></span> -<span class="i2">English daisy, ringed with red.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Slowly, as a wavering mist<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Waned the wonder out of sight,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To a sigh of amethyst,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To a wraith of scented light.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Flower and magic glass had gone;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Near the clutching fire we sat<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dreaming, dreaming, all alone,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Each upon a furry mat.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">While the firelight, red and clear,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Fluttered in the black wet pane,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It was very good to hear<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Howling winds and trotting rain.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For we found at last we knew<br /></span> -<span class="i2">More than all our fancy planned,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_59" id="page_59">{59}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">All the fairy tales were true,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And home the heart of fairyland.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="EPILOGUE" id="EPILOGUE"></a>EPILOGUE</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">>Carol, every violet has<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Heaven for a looking-glass!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Every little valley lies<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Under many-clouded skies;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Every little cottage stands<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Girt about with boundless lands;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Every little glimmering pond<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Claims the mighty shores beyond;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Shores no seaman ever hailed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Seas no ship has ever sailed.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">All the shores when day is done<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fade into the setting sun,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_60" id="page_60">{60}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">So the story tries to teach<br /></span> -<span class="i0">More than can be told in speech.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Beauty is a fading flower,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Truth is but a wizard’s tower,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where a solemn death-bell tolls,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And a forest round it rolls.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">We have come by curious ways<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To the Light that holds the days;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We have sought in haunts of fear<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For that all-enfolding sphere:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And lo! it was not far, but near.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">We have found, O foolish-fond,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The shore that has no shore beyond.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Deep in every heart it lies<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With its untranscended skies;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_61" id="page_61">{61}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">For what heaven should bend above<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hearts that own the heaven of love?<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Carol, Carol, we have come<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Back to heaven, back to home.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_63" id="page_63">{63}</a></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_62" id="page_62">{62}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_64" id="page_64">{64}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_65" id="page_65">{65}</a></span> </p> - -<h2><a name="FOREST_OF_WILD_THYME" id="FOREST_OF_WILD_THYME"></a>FOREST OF WILD THYME</h2> - -<p class="c"> -To<br /> -HELEN, ROSIE<br /> -and<br /> -BEATRIX<br /> -</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_66" id="page_66">{66}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_67" id="page_67">{67}</a></span> </p> - -<h2><a name="APOLOGIA" id="APOLOGIA"></a>APOLOGIA</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Critics</span>, you have been so kind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I would not have you think me blind<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To all the wisdom that you preach;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet before I strictlier run<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In straiter lines of chiselled speech,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Give me one more hour, just one<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Hour to hunt the fairy gleam<br /></span> -<span class="i2">That flutters through this childish dream.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">It mocks me as it flies, I know:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All too soon the gleam will go;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Yet I love it and shall love<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My dream that brooks no narrower bars<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Than bind the darkening heavens above,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_68" id="page_68">{68}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">My Jack o’Lanthorn of the stars:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Then, I’ll follow it no more,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">I’ll light the lamp: I’ll close the door.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_69" id="page_69">{69}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2>PRELUDE</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Hush</span>! if you remember how we sailed to old Japan,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Peterkin was with us then, our little brother Peterkin!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now we’ve lost him, so they say: I think the tall thin man<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Must have come and touched him with his curious twinkling fan<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And taken him away again, our merry little Peterkin;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He’ll be frightened all alone; we’ll find him if we can;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Come and look for Peterkin, poor little Peterkin.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_70" id="page_70">{70}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">No one would believe us if we told them what we know,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Or they wouldn’t grieve for Peterkin, merry little Peterkin;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If they’d only watched us roaming through the streets of Miyako,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And travelling in a palanquin where parents never go,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And seen the golden gardens where we wandered once with Peterkin,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And smelt the purple orchards where the cherry-blossoms blow,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">They wouldn’t mourn for Peterkin, merry little Peterkin.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Put away your muskets, lay aside the drum,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Hang it by the wooden sword we made for little Peterkin!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_71" id="page_71">{71}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">He was once our trumpeter, now his bugle’s dumb,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pile your arms beneath it, for the owlet light is come,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">We’ll wander through the roses where we marched of old with Peterkin,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We’ll search the summer sunset where the Hybla beehives hum,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And—if we meet a fairy there—we’ll ask for news of Peterkin.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">He was once our cabin-boy and cooked the sweets for tea;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And O, we’ve sailed around the world with laughing little Peterkin;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From nursery floor to pantry door we’ve roamed the mighty sea,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And come to port below the stairs in distant Caribee,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_72" id="page_72">{72}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i2">But wheresoe’er we sailed we took our little lubber Peterkin,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Because his wide grey eyes believed much more than ours could see,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And so we liked our Peterkin, our trusty little Peterkin.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Peterkin, Peterkin, I think if you came back<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The captain of our host to-day should be the bugler Peterkin,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And he should lead our smugglers up that steep and narrow track,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A band of noble brigands, bearing each a mighty pack<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Crammed with lace and jewels to the secret cave of Peterkin,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And he should wear the biggest boots and make his pistol crack,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_73" id="page_73">{73}</a></span>—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The Spanish cloak, the velvet mask, we’d give them all to Peterkin.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Come, my brother pirates, I am tired of play;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Come and look for Peterkin, little brother Peterkin,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Our merry little comrade that the fairies took away,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For people think we’ve lost him, and when we come to say<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Our good-night prayers to mother, if we pray for little Peterkin<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her eyes are very sorrowful, she turns her head away.<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Come and look for Peterkin, merry little Peterkin.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">God bless little Peterkin, wherever he may be!<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Come and look for Peterkin, lonely little Peterkin:<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_74" id="page_74">{74}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">I wonder if they’ve taken him again across the sea<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From the town of Wonder-Wander and the Amfalula tree<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To the land of many marvels where we roamed of old with Peterkin,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The land of blue pagodas and the flowery fields of tea!<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Come and look for Peterkin, poor little Peterkin.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_75" id="page_75">{75}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2>PART I<br /><br /> -THE SPLENDID SECRET</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Now</span> father stood engaged in talk<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With mother on that narrow walk<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Between the laurels (where we play<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At Red-skins lurking for their prey)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the grey old wall of roses<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where the Persian kitten dozes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the sunlight sleeps upon<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Crannies of the crumbling stone<br /></span> -<span class="i0">—So hot it is you scarce can bear<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Your naked hand upon it there,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though there luxuriating in heat<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With a slow and gorgeous beat<br /></span> -<span class="i0">White-winged currant-moths display<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their spots of black and gold all day.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_76" id="page_76">{76}</a></span>—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Well, since we greatly wished to know<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whether we too might some day go<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where little Peterkin had gone<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Without one word and all alone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We crept up through the laurels there<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hoping that we might overhear<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The splendid secret, darkly great,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of Peterkin’s mysterious fate;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And on what high adventure bound<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He left our pleasant garden-ground,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whether for old Japan once more<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He voyaged from the dim blue shore,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or whether he set out to run<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By candle-light to Babylon.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">We just missed something father said<br /></span> -<span class="i0">About a young prince that was dead,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A little warrior that had fought<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And failed: how hopes were brought to nought<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_77" id="page_77">{77}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">He said, and mortals made to bow<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Before the Juggernaut of Death,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all the world was darker now,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">For Time’s grey lips and icy breath<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Had blown out all the enchanted lights<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That burned in Love’s Arabian nights;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And now he could not understand<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mother’s mystic fairy-land,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">“Land of the dead, poor fairy-tale,”<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He murmured, and her face grew pale,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And then with great soft shining eyes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She leant to him—she looked so wise—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, with her cheek against his cheek,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We heard her, ah so softly, speak.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Husband, there was a happy day,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Long ago, in love’s young May,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When with a wild-flower in your hand<br /></span> -<span class="i2">You echoed that dead poet’s cry<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_78" id="page_78">{78}</a></span>—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">‘<i>Little flower, but if I could understand!</i>’<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And you saw it had roots in the depths of the sky,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And there in that smallest bud lay furled<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The secret and meaning of all the world.”<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">He shook his head and then he tried<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To kiss her, but she only cried<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And turned her face away and said,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">“You come between me and my dead!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His soul is near me, night and day,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But you would drive it far away;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And you shall never kiss me now<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Until you lift that brave old brow<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of faith I know so well; or else<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Refute the tale the skylark tells,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tarnish the glory of that May,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Explain the Smallest Flower away.”<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And still he said, “Poor fairy-tales,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_79" id="page_79">{79}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">How terribly their starlight pales<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Before the solemn sun of truth<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That rises o’er the grave of youth!”<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Is heaven a fairy-tale?” she said,—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And once again he shook his head;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And yet we ne’er could understand<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Why heaven should <i>not</i> be fairy-land,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A part of heaven at least, and why<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The thought of it made mother cry,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And why they went away so sad,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And father still quite unforgiven,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For what could children be but glad<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To find a fairy-land in heaven?<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And as we talked it o’er we found<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Our brains were really spinning round;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But Dick, our eldest, late returned<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From school, by all the lore he’d learned<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Declared that we should seek the lost<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_80" id="page_80">{80}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Smallest Flower at any cost.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For, since within its leaves lay furled<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The secret of the whole wide world,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He thought that we might learn therein<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The whereabouts of Peterkin;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, if we found the Flower, we knew<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Father would be forgiven, too;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And mother’s kiss atone for all<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The quarrel by the rose-hung wall;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We knew not how, we knew not why,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But Dick it was who bade us try,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dick made it all seem plain and clear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Dick it is who helps us here<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To tell this tale of fairy-land<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In words we scarce can understand.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For ere another golden hour<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Had passed, our anxious parents found<br /></span> -<span class="i2">We’d left the scented garden-ground<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To seek—the Smallest Flower.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_81" id="page_81">{81}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2>PART II<br /><br /> -THE FIRST DISCOVERY</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Oh</span>, grown-ups cannot understand<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And grown-ups never will,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How short’s the way to fairy-land<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Across the purple hill:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They smile: their smile is very bland,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Their eyes are wise and chill;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And yet—at just a child’s command—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The world’s an Eden still.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Under the cloudy lilac-tree,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Out at the garden-gate,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We stole, a little band of three,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To tempt our fairy fate.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There was no human eye to see,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_82" id="page_82">{82}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i2">No voice to bid us wait;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The gardener had gone home to tea,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The hour was very late.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">I wonder if you’ve ever dreamed,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In summer’s noonday sleep,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of what the thyme and heather seemed<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To ladybirds that creep<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like little crimson shimmering gems<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Between the tiny twisted stems<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of fairy forests deep;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And what it looks like as they pass<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Through jungles of the golden grass.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">If you could suddenly become<br /></span> -<span class="i2">As small a thing as they,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A midget-child, a new Tom Thumb,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">A little gauze-winged fay,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Oh then, as through the mighty shades<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_83" id="page_83">{83}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of wild thyme woods and violet glades<br /></span> -<span class="i2">You groped your forest-way,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How fraught each fragrant bough would be<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With dark o’erhanging mystery.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How high the forest aisles would loom,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">What wondrous wings would beat<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Through gloamings loaded with perfume<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In many a rich retreat,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While trees like purple censers bowed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And swung beneath a swooning cloud<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Mysteriously sweet,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where flowers that haunt no mortal clime<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Burden the Forest of Wild Thyme.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">We’d watched the bats and beetles flit<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Through sunset-coloured air<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The night that we discovered it<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And all the heavens were bare:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We’d seen the colours melt and pass<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_84" id="page_84">{84}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like silent ghosts across the grass<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To sleep—our hearts knew where;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And so we rose, and hand in hand<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We sought the gates of fairy-land.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">For Peterkin, oh Peterkin,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The cry was in our ears,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A fairy clamour, clear and thin<br /></span> -<span class="i2">From lands beyond the years;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A wistful note, a dying fall<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As of the fairy bugle-call<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Some dreamful changeling hears,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And pines within his mortal home<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Once more through fairy-land to roam.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We left behind the pleasant row<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of cottage window-panes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The village inn’s red-curtained glow,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The lovers in the lanes;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And stout of heart and strong of will<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_85" id="page_85">{85}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">We climbed the purple perfumed hill,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And hummed the sweet refrains<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of fairy tunes the tall thin man<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Taught us of old in Old Japan.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">So by the tall wide-barred church-gate<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Through which we all could pass<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We came to where that curious plate,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">That foolish plate of brass,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Said Peterkin was fast asleep<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beneath a cold and ugly heap<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of earth and stones and grass.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It was a splendid place for play,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That churchyard, on a summer’s day;<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">A splendid place for hide-and-seek<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Between the grey old stones;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where even grown-ups used to speak<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In awestruck whispering tones;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_86" id="page_86">{86}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">And here and there the grass ran wild<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In jungles for the creeping child,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And there were elfin zones<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of twisted flowers and words in rhyme<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And great sweet cushions of wild thyme.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">So in a wild thyme snuggery there<br /></span> -<span class="i2">We stayed awhile to rest;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A bell was calling folk to prayer:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">One star was in the West:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The cottage lights grew far away,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The whole sky seemed to waver and sway<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Above our fragrant nest;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And from a distant dreamland moon<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Once more we heard that fairy tune:<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Why, mother once had sung it us<br /></span> -<span class="i2">When, ere we went to bed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">She told the tale of Pyramus,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_87" id="page_87">{87}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i2">How Thisbe found him dead<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And mourned his eyes as green as leeks,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His cherry nose, his cowslip cheeks.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">That tune would oft around us float<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Since on a golden noon<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We saw the play that Shakespeare wrote<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of Lion, Wall, and Moon;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ah, hark—the ancient fairy theme—<br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Following darkness like a dream!</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The very song Will Shakespeare sang,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The music that through Sherwood rang<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Arden and that forest glade<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where Hermie and Lysander strayed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Puck cried out with impish glee,<br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Lord, what fools these mortals be</i>!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though the masquerade was mute<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of Quince and Snout and Snug and Flute,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_88" id="page_88">{88}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Bottom with his donkey’s head<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Decked with roses, white and red,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though the fairies had forsaken<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sherwood now and faintly shaken<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The forest-scents from off their feet,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet from some divine retreat<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Came the music, sweet and clear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To hang upon the raptured ear<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With the free unfettered sway<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of blossoms in the moon of May.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hark! the luscious fluttering<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of flower-soft words that kiss and cling,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And part again with sweet farewells,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And rhyme and chime like fairy-bells.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“<i>I know a bank where the wild thyme blows</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine.</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_89" id="page_89">{89}</a></span>”<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Out of the undiscovered land<br /></span> -<span class="i2">So sweetly rang the song,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We dreamed we wandered, hand in hand,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The fragrant aisles along,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where long ago had gone to dwell<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In some enchanted distant dell<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The outlawed fairy throng<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When out of Sherwood’s wildest glen<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They sank, forsaking mortal men.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And as we dreamed, the shadowy ground<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Seemed gradually to swell;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And a strange forest rose around,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But how—we could not tell—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Purple against a rose-red sky<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The big boughs brooded silently:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Far off we heard a bell;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, suddenly, a great red light<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Smouldered before our startled sight.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_90" id="page_90">{90}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Then came a cry, a fiercer flash,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And down between the trees<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We saw great crimson figures crash,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Wild-eyed monstrosities;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Great dragon-shapes that breathed a flame<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From roaring nostrils as they came:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">We sank upon our knees;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And looming o’er us, ten yards high,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like battleships they thundered by.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And then, as down that mighty dell<br /></span> -<span class="i2">We followed, faint with fear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We understood the tolling bell<br /></span> -<span class="i2">That called the monsters there;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For right in front we saw a house<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Woven of wild mysterious boughs<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Bursting out everywhere<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In crimson flames, and with a shout<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The monsters rushed to put it out.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_91" id="page_91">{91}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And, in a flash, the truth was ours;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And there we knew—we knew—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The meaning of those trees like flowers,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Those boughs of rose and blue,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And from the world we’d left above<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A voice came crooning like a dove<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To prove the dream was true:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And this—we knew it by the rhyme<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Must be—the Forest of Wild Thyme.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">For out of the mystical rose-red dome<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of heaven the voice came murmuring down:<br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Oh, Ladybird, Ladybird, fly away home;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Your house is on fire and your children are gone.</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">We knew, we knew it by the rhyme,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Though <i>we</i> seemed, after all,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No tinier, yet the sweet wild thyme<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_92" id="page_92">{92}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i2">Towered like a forest tall<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All round us; oh, we knew not how,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And yet—we knew those monsters now:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Our dream’s divine recall<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Had dwarfed us, as with magic words;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The dragons were but ladybirds!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And all around us as we gazed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Half glad, half frightened, all amazed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The scented clouds of purple smoke<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In lurid gleams of crimson broke;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And o’er our heads the huge black trees<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Obscured the sky’s red mysteries;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While here and there gigantic wings<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beat o’er us, and great scaly things<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fold over monstrous leathern fold<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Out of the smouldering copses rolled;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And eyes like blood-red pits of flame<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From many a forest-cavern came<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_93" id="page_93">{93}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">To glare across the blazing glade,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till, with the sudden thought dismayed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We wondered if we e’er should find<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The mortal home we left behind:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Fear clutched us in a grisly grasp,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We gave one wild and white-lipped gasp,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then turned and ran, with streaming hair,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Away, away, and anywhere!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And hurry-skurry, heart and heel and hand, we tore along,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And still our flying feet kept time and pattered on for Peterkin,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For Peterkin, oh Peterkin, it made a kind of song<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To prove the road was right although it seemed so dark and wrong,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">As through the desperate woods we plunged and ploughed for little Peterkin,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_94" id="page_94">{94}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where many a hidden jungle-beast made noises like a gong<br /></span> -<span class="i2">That rolled and roared and rumbled as we rushed along to Peterkin.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Peterkin, Peterkin, if you could only hear<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And answer us; one little word from little lonely Peterkin<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To take and comfort father, he is sitting in his chair<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In the library: he’s listening for your footstep on the stair<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And your patter down the passage, he can only think of Peterkin:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Come back, come back to father, for to-day he’d let us tear<br /></span> -<span class="i2">His newest book to make a paper-boat for little Peterkin.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_95" id="page_95">{95}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2>PART III<br /><br /> -THE HIDEOUS HERMIT</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Ah</span>, what wonders round us rose<br /></span> -<span class="i2">When we dared to pause and look,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Curious things that seemed all toes,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Goblins from a picture-book;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ants like witches, four feet high,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Waving all their skinny arms,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Glared at us and wandered by,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Muttering their ancestral charms.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Stately forms in green and gold<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Armour strutted through the glades,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Just as Hamlet’s ghost, we’re told,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Mooned among the midnight shades;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_96" id="page_96">{96}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Once a sort of devil came<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Scattering broken trees about,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Winged with leather, eyed with flame,—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">He was but a moth, no doubt.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Here and there, above us clomb<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Feathery clumps of palm on high:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Those were ferns, of course, but some<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Really seemed to touch the sky;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yes; and down one fragrant glade,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Listening as we onward stole,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Half delighted, half afraid,<br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Dong</i>, we heard the hare-bells toll!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Something told us what that gleam<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Down the glen was brooding o’er;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Something told us in a dream<br /></span> -<span class="i2">What the bells were tolling for!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Something told us there was fear,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_97" id="page_97">{97}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i2">Horror, peril, on our way!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was it far or was it near?<br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Near</i>, we heard the night-wind say.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Toll</i>, the music reeled and pealed<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Through the vast and sombre trees,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where a rosy light revealed<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Dimmer, sweeter mysteries;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, like petals of the rose,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Fairy fans in beauty beat,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Light in light—ah, what were those<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Rhymes we heard the night repeat?<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Toll</i>, a dream within a dream,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Up an aisle of rose and blue,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Up the music’s perfumed stream<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Came the words, and then we knew,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Knew that in that distant glen<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Once again the case was tried,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_98" id="page_98">{98}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hark!—<i>Who killed Cock Robin, then?</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0">And a tiny voice replied,<br /></span> -<span class="i6">“<i>I</i><br /></span> -<span class="i6"><i>killed</i><br /></span> -<span class="i6"><i>Cock</i><br /></span> -<span class="i6"><i>Robin!</i>”<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“<i>I!</i> And who are <i>You</i>, sir, pray?”<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Growled a voice that froze our marrow:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">“Who!” we heard the murderer say,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">“Lord, sir, I’m the famous Sparrow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And this ’ere’s my bow and arrow!<br /></span> -<span class="i6">“<i>I</i><br /></span> -<span class="i6"><i>killed</i><br /></span> -<span class="i6"><i>Cock</i><br /></span> -<span class="i6"><i>Robin!</i>”<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Then, with one great indrawn breath,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Such a sighin’ and a sobbin<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_99" id="page_99">{99}</a></span>’<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Rose all round us for the death<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of poor, poor Cock Robin,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Oh, we couldn’t bear to wait<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Even to hear the murderer’s fate,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which we’d often wished to know<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sitting in the fireside glow<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And with hot revengeful looks<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Searched for in the nursery-books;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For the Robin and the Wren<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Are such friends to mortal men,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Such dear friends to mortal men!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Toll</i>; and through the woods once more<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Stole we, drenched with fragrant dew:<br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Toll</i>; the hare-bell’s burden bore<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Deeper meanings than we knew:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Still it told us there was fear,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Horror, peril on our way!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was it far or was it near?<br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Near</i>, we heard the night-wind say!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_100" id="page_100">{100}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Near</i>; and once or twice we saw<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Something like a monstrous eye,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Something like a hideous claw<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Steal between us and the sky:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Still we hummed a dauntless tune<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Trying to think such things might be<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Glimpses of the fairy moon<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Hiding in some hairy tree.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Yet around us as we went<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Through the glades of rose and blue<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sweetness with the horror blent<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Wonder-wild in scent and hue:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Here Aladdin’s cavern yawned,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Jewelled thick with gorgeous dyes;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There a head of clover dawned<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Like a cloud in eastern skies.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Hills of topaz, lakes of dew,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_101" id="page_101">{101}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i2">Fairy cliffs of crystal sheen<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Passed we; and the forest’s blue<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Sea of branches tossed between:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Once we saw a gryphon make<br /></span> -<span class="i2">One soft iris as it passed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like the curving meteor’s wake<br /></span> -<span class="i2">O’er the forest, far and fast.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Winged with purple, breathing flame,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Crimson-eyed we saw him go,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where—ah! could it be the same<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Cockchafer we used to know?—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Valley-lilies overhead,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">High aloof in clustered spray,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Far through heaven their splendour spread,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Glimmering like the Milky Way.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Mammoths father calls “extinct,”<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Creatures that the cave-men feared,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_102" id="page_102">{102}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Through that forest walked and blinked,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Through that jungle crawled and leered;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beasts no Nimrod ever knew,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Woolly bears of black and red;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Crocodiles, we wondered who<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Ever dared to see <i>them</i> fed.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Were they lizards? If they were,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">They could swallow <i>us</i> with ease;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But they slumbered quietly there<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In among the mighty trees;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Red and silver, blue and green,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Played the moonlight on their scales;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Golden eyes they had, and lean<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Crookéd legs with cruel nails.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Yet again, oh, faint and far,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Came the shadow of a cry,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like the calling of a star<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_103" id="page_103">{103}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i2">To its brother in the sky;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like an echo in a cave<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Where young mermen sound their shells,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like the wind across a grave<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Bright with scent of lily-bells.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Like a fairy hunter’s horn<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Sounding in some purple glen<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sweet revelly to the morn<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And the fairy quest again:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then, all round it surged a song<br /></span> -<span class="i2">We could never understand<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though it lingered with us long,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And it seemed so sad and grand.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h2><span class="smcap">Song</span></h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Little Boy Blue, come blow up your horn,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Summon the day of deliverance in:</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>We are weary of bearing the burden of scorn</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_104" id="page_104">{104}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>As we yearn for the home that we never shall win;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>For here there is weeping and sorrow and sin,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>And the poor and the weak are a spoil for the strong!</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Ah! when shall the song of the ransomed begin?</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>The world is grown weary with waiting so long.</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Little Boy Blue, you are gallant and brave,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>There was never a doubt in those clear bright eyes;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Come, challenge the grim dark Gates of the Grave</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>As the skylark sings to those infinite skies!</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>This world is a dream, say the old and the wise,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>And its rainbows arise o’er the false and the true;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>But the mists of the morning are made of our sighs,—</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_105" id="page_105">{105}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Ah, shatter them, scatter them, Little Boy</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Blue!</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Little Boy Blue, if the child-heart knows,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Sound but a note as a little one may;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>And the thorns of the desert shall bloom with the rose,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>And the Healer shall wipe all tears away;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Little Boy Blue, we are all astray,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>The sheep’s in the meadow, the cow’s in the corn,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Ah, set the world right, as a little one may;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Little Boy Blue, come blow up your horn!</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Yes; and there between the trees<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Circled with a misty gleam<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like the light a mourner sees<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Round an angel in a dream;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was it he? oh, brave and slim,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_106" id="page_106">{106}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i2">Straight and clad in æry blue,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lifting to his lips the dim<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Golden horn? We never knew!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Never; for a witch’s hair<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Flooded all the moonlit sky,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And he vanished, then and there,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In the twinkling of an eye:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Just as either boyish cheek<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Puffed to set the world aright,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ere the golden horn could speak<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Round him flowed the purple night.<br /></span> -<span class="iast">* * * * *<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At last we came to a round black road<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That tunnelled through the woods and showed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or so we thought, a good clear way<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Back to the upper lands of day;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Great silken cables overhead<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_107" id="page_107">{107}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">In many a mighty mesh were spread<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Netting the rounded arch, no doubt<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To keep the weight of leafage out.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, as the tunnel narrowed down<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So thick and close the cords had grown<br /></span> -<span class="i0">No leaf could through their meshes stray,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the faint moonlight died away;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Only a strange grey glimmer shone<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To guide our weary footsteps on,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Until, tired out, we stood before<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The end, a great grey silken door.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Then from out a weird old wicket, overgrown with shaggy hair<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like a weird and wicked eyebrow round a weird and wicked eye,<br /></span> -<span class="i8">Two great eyeballs and a beard<br /></span> -<span class="i8">For one ghastly moment peered<br /></span> -<span class="i0">At our faces with a sudden stealthy stare:<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_108" id="page_108">{108}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i8">Then the door was opened wide,<br /></span> -<span class="i8">And a hideous hermit cried<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With a shy and soothing smile from out his lair,<br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Won’t you walk into my parlour? I can make you cosy there!</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And we couldn’t quite remember where we’d heard that phrase before,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As the great grey-bearded ogre stood beside his open door;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But an echo seemed to answer from a land beyond the sky—<br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Won’t you walk into my parlour? said the spider to the fly!</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Then we looked a little closer at the ogre as he stood<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With his great red eyeballs glowing like two torches in a wood,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_109" id="page_109">{109}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">And his mighty speckled belly and his dreadful clutching claws,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And his nose—a horny parrot’s beak, his whiskers and his jaws;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Yet he seemed so sympathetic, and we saw two tears descend,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As he murmured, “I’m so ugly, but I’ve lost my dearest friend!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I tell you most lymphatic’ly, I’ve yearnings in my soul,”—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And right along his parrot’s beak we saw the tear-drops roll;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He’s an <i>arrant sentimentalist</i>, we heard a distant sigh,<br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Won’t you weep upon my bosom? said the spider to the fly.</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“If you’d dreamed my dreams of beauty, if you’d seen my works of art,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_110" id="page_110">{110}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">If you’d felt the cruel hunger that is gnawing at my heart,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the grief that never leaves me and the love I can’t forget,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(For I loved with all the letters in the Chinese alphabet!)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Oh, you’d all come in to comfort me: you ought to help the weak;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And I’m full of melting moments; and—I—know—the—thing—you—seek!”<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the haunting echo answered, <i>Well, I’m sure you ought to try;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>There’s a duty to one’s neighbour, said the spider to the fly.</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">So we walked into his parlour<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Though a gleam was in his eye;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And it <i>was</i> the prettiest parlour<br /></span> -<span class="i2">That ever we did spy!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_111" id="page_111">{111}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">But we saw by the uncertain<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Misty light, shot through with gleams<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of many a silken curtain<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Broidered o’er with dreadful dreams,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That he locked the door behind us! So we stood with bated breath<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In a silence deep as death.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">There were scarlet gleams and crimson<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In the curious foggy grey,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like the blood-red light that swims on<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Old canals at fall of day,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where the smoke of some great city loops and droops in gorgeous veils<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Round the heavy purple barges’ tawny sails.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Were those creatures gagged and muffled<br /></span> -<span class="i2">See—there—by that severed head?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was it but a breeze that ruffled<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_112" id="page_112">{112}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i2">Those dark curtains, splashed with red,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ruffled the dark figures on them, made them moan like things in pain?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How we wished that we were safe at home again.<br /></span> - -<span class="iast">* * * * *<br /></span> - -<span class="i0">“Oh, we want to hear of Peterkin; good sir, you say you know;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Won’t you tell us, won’t you put us in the way we want to go?”<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So we pleaded, for he seemed so very full of sighs and tears<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That we couldn’t doubt his kindness, and we smothered all our fears;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But he said, “You must be crazy if you come to me for help;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Why should I desire to send you to your horrid little whelp?”<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And again the foolish echo made a far-away reply,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_113" id="page_113">{113}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i6"><i>Oh, don’t come to me for comfort,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i6"><i>Pray don’t look to me for comfort,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Heavens! you mustn’t be so selfish, said the spider to the fly.</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Still, when the King of Scotland, so to speak, was in a hole,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He was aided by my brother: it’s a story to console<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The convict on the treadmill and the infant with a sum,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For it teaches you to try again until your kingdom’s come!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The monarch dawdled in that hole for centuries of time<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Until my own twin-brother rose and showed him how to climb:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He showed him how to swing and sway upon a tiny thread<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_114" id="page_114">{114}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Across a mighty precipice, and light upon his head<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Without a single fracture and without a single pain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If he only did it frequently and tried and tried again:”<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And once again the whisper like a moral wandered by,<br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Perseverance is a virtue, said the spider to the fly.</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Then he moaned, “My heart is hungry; but I fear I cannot eat,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(Of course I speak entirely now of spiritual meat!)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For I only fed an hour ago, but if we calmly sat<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While I told you all my troubles in a confidential chat<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_115" id="page_115">{115}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">It would give me <i>such</i> an appetite to hear you sympathise,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And I should sleep the better—see, the tears are in my eyes!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dead yearnings are such dreadful things, let’s keep ’em all alive,—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Let’s sit and talk awhile, my dears; we’ll dine, I think, at five.”<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And he brought his chair beside us in his most engaging style,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And began to tell his story with a melancholy smile.—<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“You remember Miss Muffet<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who sat on a tuffet<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Partaking of curds and whey;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Well, <i>I</i> am the spider<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who sat down beside her<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And frightened Miss Muffet away!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_116" id="page_116">{116}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">There was nothing against her!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">An elderly spinster<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Were such a grammatical mate<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For a spider and spinner,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I swore I would win her,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I knew I had met with my fate!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">That love was the purest<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And strongest and surest<br /></span> -<span class="i2">I’d felt since my first thread was spun;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">I know I’m a bogey,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But <i>she’s</i> an old fogey,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">So why in the world did she run?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When Bruce was in trouble,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A spider, my double,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Encouraged him greatly, they say!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Now, <i>why</i> should the spider<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Who sat down beside her<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Have frightened Miss Muffet away?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_117" id="page_117">{117}</a></span>”<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">He seemed to have much more to tell,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But we could scarce be listening well,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Although we tried with all our might<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To look attentive and polite;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For still afar we heard the thin<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Clear fairy-call to Peterkin;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Clear as a skylark’s mounting song<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It drew our wandering thoughts along.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Afar, it seemed, yet, ah, so nigh,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Deep in our dreams it scaled the sky,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In captive dreams that brooked no bars<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It touched the love that moves the stars,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And with sweet music’s golden tether<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It bound our hearts and heaven together.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h2><span class="smcap">Song</span></h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Wake, arise, the lake, the skies</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Fade into the faery day;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Come and sing before our king,</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_118" id="page_118">{118}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Heed not Time, the dotard grey;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Time has given his crown to heaven—Ah,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>how long? Awake, away!</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Then, as the Hermit rambled on<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In one long listless monotone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We heard a wild and mournful groan<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Come rumbling down the tunnelled way;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A voice, an awful mournful bray,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Singing some old funereal lay;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then solemn footsteps, muffled, dull,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Approached as if they trod on wool,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And as they nearer, nearer drew,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We saw our Host was listening too!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">His bulging eyes began to glow<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Like great red match-heads rubbed at night,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And then he stole with a grim “O-ho!”<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To that grey old wicket where, out of sight,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_119" id="page_119">{119}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Blandly rubbing his hands and humming,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He could see, at one glance, whatever was coming.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">He had never been so jubilant or frolicsome before,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As he scurried on his cruel hairy crutches to the door;<br /></span> -<span class="i6">And flung it open wide<br /></span> -<span class="i6">And most hospitably cried,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">“Won’t you walk into my parlour? I’ve some little friends to tea,—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They’ll be highly entertaining to a man of sympathy,<br /></span> -<span class="i6">Such as you yourself must be!”<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Then the man, for so he seemed,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">(Doubtless one who’d lost his way<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And was dwarfed as we had been!)<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_120" id="page_120">{120}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i2">In his ancient suit of black,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Black upon the verge of green,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Entered like a ghost that dreamed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Sadly of some bygone day;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And he never ceased to sing<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In that awful mournful bray.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">The door closed behind his back;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">He walked round us in a ring,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And we hoped that he might free us,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But his tears appeared to blind him,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For he didn’t seem to see us,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And the Hermit crept behind him<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like a cat about to spring.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And the song he sang was this;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And his nose looked very grand<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As he sang it, with a bliss<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Which we could not understand;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_121" id="page_121">{121}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">For his voice was very sad,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">While his nose was proud and glad.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Rain, April, rain, thy sunny, sunny tears!</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Through the black boughs the robe of Spring appears,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Yet, for the ghosts of all the bygone years,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i6"><i>Rain, April, rain.</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Rain, April, rain; the rose will soon be glad;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Spring will rejoice, a Spring I, too, have had;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>A little while, till I no more be sad,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i6"><i>Rain, April, rain.</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And then the spider sprang<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Before we could breathe or speak,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And one great scream out-rang<br /></span> -<span class="i2">As the terrible horny beak<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Crunched into the Sad Man’s head,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_122" id="page_122">{122}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i2">And the terrible hairy claws<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Clutched him around his middle;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And he opened his lantern-jaws,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And he gave one twist, one twiddle,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">One kick, and his sorrow was dead.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And there, as he sucked his bleeding prey,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The spider leered at us—“You will do,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">My sweet little dears, for another day;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But this is the sort I like; huh! huh!”<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And there we stood, in frozen fear,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Whiter than death,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">With bated breath;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And lo! as we thought of Peterkin,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Father and home and Peterkin,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Once more that music clear and thin,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Clear as a skylark’s mounting song,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But nearer now, more sweet, more strong,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Drew all our wandering thoughts along,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_123" id="page_123">{123}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Until it seemed, a mystic sea<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of hidden delight and harmony<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Began to ripple and rise all round<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The prison where our hearts lay bound;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And from sweet heaven’s most rosy rim<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There swelled a distant marching hymn<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which made the hideous Hermit pause<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And listen with lank down-dropt jaws,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till, with great bulging eyes of fear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He sought the wicket again to peer<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Along the tunnel, as like sweet rain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We heard the still approaching strain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, under it, the rhythmic beat<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of multitudinous marching feet.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nearer, nearer, they rippled and rang,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And this was the marching song they sang:—<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h2><span class="smcap">Song</span></h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>A fairy band are we</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>In fairy-land:</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_124" id="page_124">{124}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Singing march we, hand in hand;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Singing, singing all day long:</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>(Some folk never heard a fairy-song!)</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2"><i>Singing, singing,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>When the merry thrush is swinging</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>On a springing spray;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Or when the witch that lives in gloomy caves</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>And creeps by night among the graves</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Calls a cloud across the day;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Cease we never our fairy song,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>March we ever, along, along,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Down the dale, or up the hill,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Singing, singing still.</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And suddenly the Hermit turned and ran with all his might<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Through the back-door of his parlour as we thought of little Peterkin;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_125" id="page_125">{125}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the great grey roof was shattered by a shower of rosy light,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the spider-house went floating, torn and tattered through the night<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In a flight of prismy streamers, as a shout went up for Peterkin;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And lo, the glistening fairy-host stood there arrayed for fight,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In arms of rose and green and gold, to lead us on to Peterkin.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And all around us, rippling like a pearl and opal sea,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The host of fairy faces winked a kindly hint of Peterkin;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all around the rosy glade a laugh of fairy glee<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Watched spider-streamers floating up from fragrant tree to tree<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_126" id="page_126">{126}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i2">Till the moonlight caught the gossamers and, oh we wished for Peterkin!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Each rope became a rainbow; but it made us ache to see<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Such a fairy forest-pomp without explaining it to Peterkin.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">Then all the glittering crowd<br /></span> -<span class="i8">With a courtly gesture bowed<br /></span> -<span class="i8">Like a rosy jewelled cloud<br /></span> -<span class="i10">Round a flame,<br /></span> -<span class="i8">As the King of Fairy-land,<br /></span> -<span class="i8">Very dignified and grand,<br /></span> -<span class="i8">Stepped forward to demand<br /></span> -<span class="i10">Whence we came.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i8">He’d a cloak of gold and green<br /></span> -<span class="i8">Such as caterpillars spin,<br /></span> -<span class="i8">For the fairy ways, I ween,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_127" id="page_127">{127}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i10">Are very frugal;<br /></span> -<span class="i8">He’d a bow that he had borne<br /></span> -<span class="i8">Since the crimson Eden morn,<br /></span> -<span class="i8">And a honeysuckle horn<br /></span> -<span class="i10">For his bugle.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">So we told our tale of faëry to the King of Fairy-land,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And asked if he could let us know the latest news of Peterkin;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And he turned him with a courtly smile and waved his jewelled wand<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And cried, <i>Pease-blossom, Mustard-seed! You know the old command;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Well; these are little children; you must lead them on to Peterkin.</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then he knelt, the King of Faëry knelt; his eyes were great and grand<br /></span> -<span class="i2">As he took our hands and kissed them, saying, <i>Father loves your Peterkin</i>!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_128" id="page_128">{128}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">So out they sprang, on either side,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A light fantastic fairy guide,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To lead us to the land unknown<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where little Peterkin was gone;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, as we went with timid pace,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We saw that every fairy face<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In all that moonlit host was wet<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With tears: we never shall forget<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The mystic hush that seemed to fade<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Away like sound, as down the glade<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We passed beyond their zone of light.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then through the forest’s purple night<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We trotted, at a pleasant speed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With gay Pease-blossom and Mustard-seed.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_129" id="page_129">{129}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2>PART IV<br /><br /> -PEASE-BLOSSOM AND MUSTARD-SEED</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Shyly we surveyed our guides<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As through the gloomy woods we went<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In the light that the straggling moonbeams lent:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">We envied them their easy strides!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Pease-blossom in his crimson cap<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And delicate suit of rose-leaf green,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His crimson sash and his jewelled dagger,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Strutted along with an elegant swagger<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which showed that he didn’t care one rap<br /></span> -<span class="i2">For anything less than a Fairy Queen:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">His eyes were deep like the eyes of a poet,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Although his crisp and curly hair<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Certainly didn’t seem to show it!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_130" id="page_130">{130}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i2">While Mustard-seed was a devil-may-care<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Epigrammatic and pungent fellow<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Clad in a splendid suit of yellow,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With emerald stars on his glittering breast<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And eyes that shone with a diamond light:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They made you feel sure it would always be best<br /></span> -<span class="i2">To tell him the truth: he was not perhaps <i>quite</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0">So polite as Pease-blossom, but then who could be<br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Quite</i> such a debonair fairy as he?<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">We never could tell you one-half that we heard<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And saw on that journey. For instance, a bird<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ten times as big as an elephant stood<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By the side of a nest like a great thick wood:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The clouds in glimmering wreaths were spread<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_131" id="page_131">{131}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Behind its vast and shadowy head<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which rolled at us trembling below. (Its eyes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were like great black moons in those pearl-pale skies.)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And we feared he might take us, perhaps, for a worm.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">But he ruffled his breast with the sound of a storm,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And snuggled his head with a careless disdain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Under his huge hunched wing again;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And Mustard-seed said, as we stole thro’ the dark,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There was nothing to fear: it was only a Lark!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And so he cheered the way along<br /></span> -<span class="i2">With many a neat little epigram,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">While dear Pease-blossom before him swam<br /></span> -<span class="i0">On a billow of lovely moonlit song,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_132" id="page_132">{132}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Telling us why they had left their home<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In Sherwood, and had hither come<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To dwell in this magical scented clime,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This dim old Forest of sweet Wild Thyme.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">“Men toil,” he said, “from morn till night<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With bleeding hands and blinded sight<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For gold, more gold! They have betrayed<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The trust that in their souls was laid;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Their fairy birthright they have sold<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For little disks of mortal gold;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And now they cannot even see<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The gold upon the greenwood tree,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The wealth of coloured lights that pass<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In soft gradations through the grass,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The riches of the love untold<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That wakes the day from grey to gold;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And howsoe’er the moonlight weaves<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Magic webs among the leaves<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_133" id="page_133">{133}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Englishmen care little now<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For elves beneath the hawthorn bough:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nor if Robin should return<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dare they of an outlaw learn;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For them the Smallest Flower is furled,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Mute is the music of the world;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And unbelief has driven away<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Beauty from the blossomed spray.”<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Then Mustard-seed with diamond eyes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Taught us to be laughter-wise,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And he showed us how that Time<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Is much less powerful than a rhyme;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And that Space is but a dream;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">“For look,” he said, with eyes agleam,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">“Now you are become so small<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You think the Thyme a forest tall;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But underneath your feet you see<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A world of wilder mystery<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_134" id="page_134">{134}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where, if you were smaller yet,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You would just as soon forget<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This forest, which you’d leave above<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As you have left the home you love!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For, since the Thyme you used to know<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Seems a forest here below,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What if you should sink again<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And find there stretched a mighty plain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Between each grass-blade and the next?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">You’d think till you were quite perplexed!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Especially if all the flowers<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That lit the sweet Thyme-forest bowers<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were in that wild transcendent change<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Turned to Temples, great and strange,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With many a pillared portal high<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And domes that swelled against the sky!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">How foolish, then, you will agree,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Are those who think that all must see<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The world alike, or those who scorn<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_135" id="page_135">{135}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Another who, perchance, was born<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where—in a different dream from theirs—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What they call sins to him are prayers!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We cannot judge; we cannot know;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">All things mingle; all things flow;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There’s only one thing constant here—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Love—that untranscended sphere:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Love, that while all ages run<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Holds the wheeling worlds in one;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Love that, as your sages tell,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Soars to heaven and sinks to hell.”<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Even as he spoke, we seemed to grow<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Smaller, the Thyme trees seemed to go<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Farther away from us: new dreams<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Flashed out on us with mystic gleams<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of mighty Temple-domes: deep awe<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Held us all breathless as we saw<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A carven portal glimmering out<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_136" id="page_136">{136}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Between new flowers that put to rout<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Our other fancies: in sweet fear<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We tiptoed past, and seemed to hear<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A sound of singing from within<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That told our souls of Peterkin:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Our thoughts of <i>him</i> were still the same<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Howe’er the shadows went and came!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So, on we wandered, hand in hand,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all the world was fairy-land.<br /></span> -<span class="iast">* * * * *<br /></span> - -<span class="i0">And as we went we seemed to hear<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Surging up from distant dells<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A solemn music, soft and clear<br /></span> -<span class="i2">As if a field of lily-bells<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were tolling all together, sweet<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But sad and low and keeping time<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To multitudinous marching feet<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With a slow funereal beat<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And a deep harmonious chime<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_137" id="page_137">{137}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">That told us by its dark refrain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The reason fairies suffered pain.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h2><span class="smcap">Song</span></h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Bear her along<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Keep ye your song<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tender and sweet and low:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Fairies must die!<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Ask ye not why<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ye that have hurt her so.<br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Passing away—flower from the spray! Colour and light from the leaf!</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Soon, soon will the year shed its bloom on her bier, and the dust of its dreams on our grief.</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Men upon earth<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Bring us to birth<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Gently at even and morn!<br /></span> -<span class="i2">When as brother and brother<br /></span> -<span class="i1">They greet one another<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_138" id="page_138">{138}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">And smile—then a fairy is born!<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But at each cruel word<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Upon earth that is heard,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Each deed of unkindness or hate,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Some fairy must pass<br /></span> -<span class="i2">From the games in the grass<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And steal thro’ the terrible Gate.<br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Passing away—flower from the spray! Colour and light from the leaf!</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Soon, soon will the year shed its bloom on her bier, and the dust of its dreams on our grief.</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">If ye knew, if ye knew<br /></span> -<span class="i2">All the wrong that ye do<br /></span> -<span class="i0">By the thought that ye harbour alone,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">How the face of some fairy<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Grows wistful and weary<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the heart in her cold as a stone!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_139" id="page_139">{139}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i2">Ah, she was born<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Blithe as the morn<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Under an April sky,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Born of the greeting<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of two lovers meeting!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They parted, and so she must die!<br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Passing away—flower from the spray! Colour and light from the leaf!</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Soon, soon will the year shed its bloom on her bier, and the dust of its dreams on our grief.</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Cradled in blisses,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Yea, born of your kisses,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Oh, ye lovers that met by the moon,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">She would not have cried<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In the darkness and died<br /></span> -<span class="i0">If ye had not forgotten so soon!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Cruel mortals, they say,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_140" id="page_140">{140}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i2">Live for ever and aye,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And they pray in the dark on their knees!<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But the flowers that are fled<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And the loves that are dead,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">What heaven takes pity on these?<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Bear her along—singing your song—tender and sweet and low!</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Fairies must die! Ask ye not why—ye that have hurt her so.</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i2">Passing away—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Flower from the spray!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Colour and light from the leaf!<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Soon, soon will the year<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Shed its bloom on her bier<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the dust of its dreams on our grief!<br /></span> -<span class="iast">* * * * *<br /></span> - -<span class="i0">Then we came through a glittering crystal grot<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_141" id="page_141">{141}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i2">By a path like a pale moonbeam,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And a broad blue bridge of Forget-me-not<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Over a shimmering stream,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To where, through the deep blue dusk, a gleam<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Rose like the soul of the setting sun;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A sunset breaking through the earth,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">A crimson sea of the poppies of dream,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Deep as the sleep that gave them birth<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In the night where all earthly dreams are done.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And then, like a pearl-pale porch of the moon,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Faint and sweet as a starlit shrine,<br /></span> -<span class="i6">Over the gloom<br /></span> -<span class="i6">Of the crimson bloom<br /></span> -<span class="i2">We saw the Gates of Ivory shine;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, lulled and lured by the lullaby tune<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of the cradling airs that drowsily creep<br /></span> -<span class="i0">From blossom to blossom, and lazily croon<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_142" id="page_142">{142}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Through the heart of the midnight’s mystic noon,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">We came to the Gates of the City of Sleep.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Faint and sweet as a lily’s repose<br /></span> -<span class="i2">On the broad black breast of a midnight lake,<br /></span> -<span class="i4">The City delighted the cradling night:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like a straggling palace of cloud it rose;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The towers were crowned with a crystal light<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Like the starry crown of a white snowflake<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As they pierced in a wild white pinnacled crowd,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Through the dusky wreaths of enchanted cloud<br /></span> -<span class="i2">That swirled all round like a witch’s hair.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And we heard, as the sound of a great sea sighing,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_143" id="page_143">{143}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i2">The sigh of the sleepless world of care;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And we saw strange shadowy figures flying<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Up to the Ivory Gates and beating<br /></span> -<span class="i2">With pale hands, long and famished and thin;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like blinded birds we saw them dash<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Against the cruelly gleaming wall:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">We heard them wearily moan and call<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With sharp starved lips for ever entreating<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The pale doorkeeper to let them in.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And still, as they beat, again and again,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">We saw on the moon-pale lintels a splash<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of crimson blood like a poppy-stain<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or a wild red rose from the gardens of pain<br /></span> -<span class="i2">That sigh all night like a ghostly sea<br /></span> -<span class="i2">From the City of Sleep to Gethsemane.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And lo, as we neared that mighty crowd<br /></span> -<span class="i0">An old blind man came, crying aloud<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_144" id="page_144">{144}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">To greet us, as once the blind man cried<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In the Bible picture—you know we tried<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To paint that print, with its Eastern sun;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But the reds and the yellows <i>would</i> mix and run,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the blue of the sky made a horrible mess<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Right over the edge of the Lord’s white dress.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And the old blind man, just as though he had eyes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Came straight to meet us; and all the cries<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of the crowd were hushed; and a strange sweet calm<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Stole through the air like a breath of the balm<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That was wafted abroad from the Forest of Thyme<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(For it rolled all round that curious clime<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With its magical clouds of perfumed trees.)<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the blind man cried, “Our help is at hand,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_145" id="page_145">{145}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Oh, brothers, remember the old command,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Remember the frankincense and myrrh,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Make way, make way for those little ones there;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Make way, make way, I have seen them afar<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Under a great white Eastern star;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For I am the mad blind man who sees!”<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then he whispered, softly—<i>Of such as these</i>;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And through the hush of the cloven crowd<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We passed to the gates of the City, and there<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Our fairy heralds cried aloud—<br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Open your Gates; don’t stand and stare;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>These are the Children for whom our King</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Made all the star-worlds dance in a ring!</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And lo, like a sorrow that melts from the heart<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In tears, the slow gates melted apart;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And into the City we passed like a dream;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And then, in one splendid marching stream<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The whole of that host came following through.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_146" id="page_146">{146}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">We were only children, just like you;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Children, ah, but we felt so grand<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As we led them—although we could understand<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Nothing at all of the wonderful song<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That rose all round as we marched along.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h2><span class="smcap">Song</span></h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>You that have seen how the world and its glory</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Change and grow old like the love of a friend;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>You that have come to the end of the story,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>You that were tired ere you came to the end;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>You that are weary of laughter and sorrow,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Pain and pleasure, labour and sin,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Sick of the midnight and dreading the morrow,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Ah, come in; come in.</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>You that are bearing the load of the ages;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>You that have loved overmuch and too late;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>You that confute all the saws of the sages;</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_147" id="page_147">{147}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>You that served only because you must wait,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Knowing your work was a wasted endeavour;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>You that have lost and yet triumphed therein,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Add loss to your losses and triumph for ever;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Ah, come in; come in.</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And we knew as we went up that twisted street,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">With its violet shadows and pearl-pale walls,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We were coming to Something strange and sweet,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">For the dim air echoed with elfin calls;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, far away, in the heart of the City,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">A murmur of laughter and revelry rose,—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A sound that was faint as the smile of Pity,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And sweet as a swan-song’s golden close.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And then, once more, as we marched along,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There surged all round us that wonderful song;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And it swung to the tramp of our marching feet;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_148" id="page_148">{148}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">But ah, it was tenderer now and so sweet<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That it made our eyes grow wet and blind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the whole wide-world seem mother-kind,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Folding us round with a gentle embrace,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And pressing our souls to her soft sweet face.<br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<h2><span class="smcap">Song</span></h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Dreams; dreams; ah, the memory blinding us,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Blinding our eyes to the way that we go;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Till the new sorrow come, once more reminding us</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Blindly of kind hearts, ours long ago:</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Mother-mine, whisper we, yours was the love for me!</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Still, though our paths lie lone and apart,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Yours is the true love, shining above for me,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Yours are the kind eyes, hurting my heart.</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Dreams; dreams; ah, how shall we sing of them,</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_149" id="page_149">{149}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Dreams that we loved with our head on her breast:</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Dreams; dreams; and the cradle-sweet swing of them;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Ay, for her voice was the sound we loved best:</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Can we remember at all or, forgetting it,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Can we recall for a moment the gleam</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Of our childhood’s delight and the wonder begetting it,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Wonder awakened in dreams of a dream?</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And, once again, from the heart of the City<br /></span> -<span class="i2">A murmur of tenderer laughter rose,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A sound that was faint as the smile of Pity,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And sweet as a swan-song’s golden close;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And it seemed as if some wonderful Fair<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Were charming the night of the City of Dreams,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For, over the mystical din out there,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_150" id="page_150">{150}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i2">The clouds were litten with flickering gleams,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And a roseate light like the day’s first flush<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Quivered and beat on the towers above,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And we heard through the curious crooning hush<br /></span> -<span class="i2">An elfin song that we used to love.<br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Little Boy Blue, come blow up your horn ...</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2">And the soft wind blew it the other way;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And all that we heard was—<i>Cow’s in the corn</i>;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">But we never heard anything half so gay!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And ever we seemed to be drawing nearer<br /></span> -<span class="i2">That mystical roseate smoke-wreathed glare,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the curious music grew louder and clearer,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Till <i>Mustard-Seed</i> said, “We are lucky, you see,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">We’ve arrived at a time of festivity!”<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And so to the end of the street we came,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And turned a corner, and—there we were,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_151" id="page_151">{151}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">In a place that glowed like the dawn of day,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">A crowded clamouring City square<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like the cloudy heart of an opal, aflame<br /></span> -<span class="i2">With the lights of a great Dream-Fair:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Thousands of children were gathered there,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Thousands of old men, weary and grey,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the shouts of the showmen filled the air—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">This way! This way! This way!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And <i>See-Saw</i>; <i>Margery Daw</i>; we heard a rollicking shout,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As the swing-boats hurtled over our heads to the tune of the roundabout;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And <i>Little Boy Blue, come blow up your horn</i>, we heard the showmen cry,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And <i>Dickory Dock, I’m as good as a clock</i>, we heard the swings reply.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">This way, this way to your Heart’s Desire;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_152" id="page_152">{152}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i2">Come, cast your burdens down;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the pauper shall mount his throne in the skies,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And the king be rid of his crown:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And souls that were dead shall be fed with fire<br /></span> -<span class="i2">From the fount of their ancient pain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And your lost love come with the light in her eyes<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Back to your heart again.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Ah, here be sure she shall never prove<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Less kind than her eyes were bright;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This way, this way to your old lost love,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">You shall kiss her lips to-night;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This way for the smile of a dead man’s face<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And the grip of a brother’s hand,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">This way to your childhood’s heart of grace<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And your home in Fairy-land.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_153" id="page_153">{153}</a></span><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Dickory Dock, I’m as good as a clock</i>, d’you hear my swivels chime?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To and fro as I come and go, I keep eternal time.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">O, little Bo-peep, if you’ve lost your sheep and don’t know where to find ’em,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Leave ’em alone and they’ll come home, and carry their tails behind ’em.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And <i>See-Saw</i>; <i>Margery Daw</i>; there came the chorussing shout,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As the swing-boats answered the roaring tune of the rollicking roundabout;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Dickory, dickory, dickory, dock, d’you hear my swivels chime?<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Swing; swing; you’re as good as a king if you keep eternal time.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Then we saw that the tunes of the world were one;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_154" id="page_154">{154}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the metre that guided the rhythmic sun<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was at one, like the ebb and the flow of the sea,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With the tunes that we learned at our mother’s knee;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The beat of the horse-hoofs that carried us down<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To see the fine Lady of Banbury Town;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And so, by the rhymes that we knew, we could tell<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Without knowing the others—that all was well.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And then, our brains began to spin;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For it seemed as if that mighty din<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were no less than the cries of the poets and sages<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of all the nations in all the ages;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, if they could only beat out the whole<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_155" id="page_155">{155}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of their music together, the guerdon and goal<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of the world would be reached with one mighty shout,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the dark dread secret of Time be out;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And nearer, nearer they seemed to climb,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And madder and merrier rose the song,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the swings and the see-saws marked the time;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">For this was the maddest and merriest throng<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That ever was met on a holy-day<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To dance the dust of the world away;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And madder and merrier, round and round<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The whirligigs whirled to the whirling sound,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Till it seemed that the mad song burst its bars<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And mixed with the song of the whirling stars,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The song that the rhythmic Time-Tides tell<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To seraphs in Heaven and devils in Hell;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Ay; Heaven and Hell in accordant chime<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_156" id="page_156">{156}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">With the universal rhythm and rhyme<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were nearing the secret of Space and Time;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The song of that ultimate mystery<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Which only the mad blind men who see,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Led by the laugh of a little child,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Can utter; Ay, wilder and yet more wild<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It maddened, till now—full song—it was out!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">It roared from the starry roundabout—<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>A child was born in Bethlehem, in Bethlehem, in Bethlehem,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>A child was born in Bethlehem; ah, hear my fairy fable;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>For I have seen the King of Kings, no longer thronged with angel wings,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>But croodling like a little babe, and cradled in a stable.</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>The wise men came to greet him with their gifts of myrrh and frankincense,—</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_157" id="page_157">{157}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Gold and myrrh and frankincense they brought to make him mirth;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>And would you know the way to win to little brother Peterkin,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>My childhood’s heart shall guide you through the glories of the earth.</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>A child was born in Bethlehem, in Bethlehem, in Bethlehem;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>The wise men came to welcome him: a star stood o’er the gable;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>And there they saw the Kings of Kings, no longer thronged with angel wings,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>But croodling like a little babe, and cradled in a stable.</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And creeping through the music once again the fairy cry<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Came freezing o’er the snowy towers to lead us on to Peterkin:<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_158" id="page_158">{158}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Once more the fairy bugles blew from lands beyond the sky,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And we all groped out together, dazed and blind, we knew not why;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Out through the City’s farther gates we went to look for Peterkin;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Out, out into the dark Unknown, and heard the clamour die<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Far, far away behind us as we trotted on to Peterkin.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Then once more along the rare<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Forest-paths we groped our way:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Here the glow-worm’s league-long glare<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Turned the Wild Thyme night to day:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">There we passed a sort of whale<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Sixty feet in length or more,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But we knew it was a snail<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Even when we heard it snore.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_159" id="page_159">{159}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">Often through the glamorous gloom<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Almost on the top of us<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We beheld a beetle loom<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Like a hippopotamus;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Once or twice a spotted toad<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Like a mountain wobbled by<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With a rolling moon that glowed<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Through the skin-fringe of its eye.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Once a caterpillar bowed<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Down a leaf of Ygdrasil<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like a sunset-coloured cloud<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Sleeping on a quiet hill:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Once we came upon a moth<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Fast asleep with outspread wings,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Like a mighty tissued cloth<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Woven for the feet of kings.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">There above the woods in state<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_160" id="page_160">{160}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i2">Many a temple dome that glows<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Delicately like a great<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Rainbow-coloured bubble rose:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Though they were but flowers on earth,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Oh, we dared not enter in;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For in that divine re-birth<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Less than awe were more than sin!<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Yet their mystic anthems came<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Sweetly to our listening ears;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And their burden was the same—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">“No more sorrow, no more tears!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whither Peterkin has gone<br /></span> -<span class="i2">You, assuredly, shall go:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">When your wanderings are done,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">All he knows you, too, shall know!”<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">So we thought we’d onward roam<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Till earth’s Smallest Flower appeared,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_161" id="page_161">{161}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">With a less tremendous dome<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Less divinely to be feared:<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then, perchance, if we should dare<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Timidly to enter in,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Might some kindly doorkeeper<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Give us news of Peterkin.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">At last we saw a crimson porch<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Far away, like a dull red torch<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Burning in the purple gloom;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And a great ocean of perfume<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Rolled round us as we drew anear,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And then we strangely seemed to hear<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The shadow of a mighty psalm,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">A sound as if a golden sea<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of music swung in utter calm<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Against the shores of Eternity;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And then we saw the mighty dome<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Of some mysterious Temple tower<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_162" id="page_162">{162}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">On high; and knew that we had come,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">At last, to that sweet House of Grace<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Which wise men find in every place—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The Temple of the Smallest Flower.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And there—alas—our fairy friends<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Whispered, “Here our kingdom ends:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">You must enter in alone,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But your souls will surely show<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Whither Peterkin is gone<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And the road that you must go:<br /></span> -<span class="i2">We, poor fairies, have no souls!<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Hark, the warning hare-bell tolls;”<br /></span> -<span class="i0">So “Good-bye, good-bye,” they said,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">“Dear little seekers-for-the-dead.”<br /></span> -<span class="i0">They vanished; ah, but as they went<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We heard their voices softly blent<br /></span> -<span class="i0">In some mysterious fairy song<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That seemed to make us wise and strong;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_163" id="page_163">{163}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">For it was like the holy calm<br /></span> -<span class="i0">That fills the bosomed rose with balm,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Or blessings that the twilight breathes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Where the honeysuckle wreathes<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Between young lovers and the sky<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As on banks of flowers they lie;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And with wings of rose and green<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Laughing fairies pass unseen,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Singing their sweet lullaby,—<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Lulla-lulla-lullaby!<br /></span> -<span class="i4">Lulla-lulla-lullaby!<br /></span> -<span class="i6">Ah, good night, with lullaby!<br /></span> -<span class="iast">* * * * *<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Only a flower? Those carven walls,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Those cornices and coronals,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The splendid crimson porch, the thin<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Strange sounds of singing from within—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Through the scented arch we stept,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Pushed back the soft petallic door,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_164" id="page_164">{164}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">And down the velvet aisles we crept;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Was it a Flower—no more?<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">For one of the voices that we heard,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">A child’s voice, clear as the voice of a bird,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Was it not?—nay, it could not be!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And a woman’s voice that tenderly<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Answered him in fond refrain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And pierced our hearts with sweet sweet pain,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As if dear Mary-mother hung<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Above some little child, and sung<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Between the waves of that golden sea<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The cradle-songs of Eternity;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And, while in her deep smile he basked,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Answered whatsoe’er he asked.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>What is there hid in the heart of a rose,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i6"><i>Mother-mine?</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Ah, who knows, who knows, who knows?</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_165" id="page_165">{165}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>A man that died on a lonely hill</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>May tell you, perhaps, but none other will,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i6"><i>Little child.</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>What does it take to make a rose,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i6"><i>Mother-mine?</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>The God that died to make it knows</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>It takes the world’s eternal wars,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>It takes the moon and all the stars,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>It takes the might of heaven and hell</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>And the everlasting Love as well,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i6"><i>Little child.</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">But there, in one great shrine apart<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Within the Temple’s holiest heart,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We came upon a blinding light,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Suddenly, and a burning throne<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of pinnacled glory, wild and white;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">We could not see Who reigned thereon;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_166" id="page_166">{166}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">For, all at once, as a wood-bird sings,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The aisles were full of great white wings<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Row above mystic burning row;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And through the splendour and the glow<br /></span> -<span class="i0">We saw four angels, great and sweet,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">With outspread wings and folded feet,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Come gliding down from a heaven within<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The golden heart of Paradise;<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And in their hands, with laughing eyes,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Lay little brother Peterkin.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And all around the Temple of the Smallest of the Flowers<br /></span> -<span class="i2">The glory of the angels made a star for little Peterkin;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For all the Kings of Splendour and all the Heavenly Powers<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Were gathered there together in the fairy forest bowers<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_167" id="page_167">{167}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i2">With all their globed and radiant wings to make a star for Peterkin,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The star that shone upon the East, a star that still is ours,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Whene’er we hang our stockings up, a star of wings for Peterkin.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Then all, in one great flash, was gone—<br /></span> -<span class="i2">A voice cried, “Hush, all’s well!”<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And we stood dreaming there alone,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">In darkness. Who can tell<br /></span> -<span class="i0">The mystic quiet that we felt,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">As if the woods in worship knelt,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Far off we heard a bell<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Tolling strange human folk to prayer<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Through fields of sunset-coloured air.<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">And then a voice, “Why, here they are!”<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And—as it seemed—we woke;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_168" id="page_168">{168}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">The sweet old skies, great star by star<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Upon our vision broke;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Field over field of heavenly blue<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Rose o’er us; then a voice we knew<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Softly and gently spoke—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">“See, they are sleeping by the side<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Of that dear little one—who died.”<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_169" id="page_169">{169}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="PART_V" id="PART_V"></a>PART V<br /><br /> -THE HAPPY ENDING</h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">We</span> told dear father all our tale<br /></span> -<span class="i2">That night before we went to bed,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And at the end his face grew pale,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">And he bent over us and said<br /></span> -<span class="i0">(Was it not strange?) he, too, was there,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">A weary, weary watch to keep<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Before the gates of the City of Sleep;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But, ere we came, he did not dare<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Even to dream of entering in,<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Or even to hope for Peterkin.<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He was the poor blind man, he said,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And we—how low he bent his head!<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then he called mother near; and low<br /></span> -<span class="i0">He whispered to us—“Prompt me now;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_170" id="page_170">{170}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0">For I forget that song we heard,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But you remember every word.”<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Then memory came like a breaking morn,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And we breathed it to him—<i>A child was born!</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0">And there he drew us to his breast<br /></span> -<span class="i0">And softly murmured all the rest.—<br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>The wise men came to greet him with their gifts of myrrh and frankincense,—</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Gold and myrrh and frankincense they brought to make him mirth;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>And would you know the way to win to little brother Peterkin,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>My childhood’s heart shall guide you through the glories of the earth.</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0">Then he looked up and mother knelt<br /></span> -<span class="i2">Beside us, oh, her eyes were bright;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her arms were like a lovely belt<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_171" id="page_171">{171}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i2">All round us as we said Good-night<br /></span> -<span class="i0">To father: <i>he</i> was crying now,<br /></span> -<span class="i0">But they were happy tears, somehow;<br /></span> -<span class="i0">For there we saw dear mother lay<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Her cheek against his cheek and say—<br /></span> -<span class="i0">Hush, let me kiss those tears away.<br /></span> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_172" id="page_172">{172}</a></span></div></div> -</div> - -<h2><a name="DEDICATION" id="DEDICATION"></a><i>DEDICATION</i></h2> - -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i><span class="smcap">What</span> can a wanderer bring</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>To little ones loved like you?</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>You have songs of your own to sing</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>That are far more steadfast and true,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Crumbs of pity for birds</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>That flit o’er your sun-swept lawn,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Songs that are dearer than all our words</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>With a love that is clear as the dawn.</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>What should a dreamer devise,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>In the depths of his wayward will,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>To deepen the gleam of your eyes</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Who can dance with the Sun-child still?</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Yet you glanced on his lonely way,</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_173" id="page_173">{173}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>You cheered him in dream and deed,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>And his heart is o’erflowing, o’erflowing to-day</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>With a love that—you never will need.</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>What can a pilgrim teach</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>To dwellers in fairy-land?</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Truth that excels all speech</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>You murmur and understand!</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>All he can sing you he brings;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>But—one thing more if he may</i>,<br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>One thing more that the King of Kings</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Will take from the child on the way.</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Yet how can a child of the night</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Brighten the light of the sun?</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>How can he add a delight</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>To the dances that never are done?</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Ah, what if he struggles to turn</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Once more to the sweet old skies</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_174" id="page_174">{174}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>With praise and praise, from the fetters that burn,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>To the God that brightened your eyes?</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Yes; he is weak, he will fail,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Yet, what if, in sorrows apart,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>One thing, one should avail,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>The cry of a grateful heart;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>It has wings: they return through the night</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>To a sky where the light lives yet,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>To the clouds that kneel on his mountain-height</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>And the path that his feet forget.</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>What if he struggles and still</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Fails and struggles again?</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>What if his broken will</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Whispers the struggle is vain?</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Once at least he has risen</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Because he remembered your eyes;</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_175" id="page_175">{175}</a></span><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>Once they have brought to his earthly prison</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>The passion of Paradise.</i><br /></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<span class="i0"><i>Kind little eyes that I love,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Eyes forgetful of mine,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>In a dream I am bending above</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>Your sleep, and you open and shine;</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>And I know as my own grow blind</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>With a lonely prayer for your sake,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i0"><i>He will hear—even me—little eyes that were kind,</i><br /></span> -<span class="i2"><i>God bless you, asleep or awake.</i><br /></span> -</div></div> -</div> - -<hr /> - -<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">By</span> ALFRED NOYES</p> - -<p class="nind"><b><big>Poems</big></b></p> - -<p class="c">With an Introduction by <span class="smcap">Hamilton Mabie</span></p> - -<p class="rt"> -<i>Cloth, 12mo, $1.25 net</i><br /> -</p> - -<p>“Imagination, the capacity to perceive vividly and feel sincerely, and -the gift of fit and beautiful expression in verse-form—if these may be -taken as the equipment of a poet, nearly all of this volume is poetry. -And if to the sum of these be added the indescribable increment of charm -which comes occasionally to the work of some poet, quite unearned by any -of these catalogued qualities of his, you have a fair measure of Mr. -Noyes at his best.... Two considerations render Mr. Noyes interesting -above most poets: the wonderful degree in which the personal charm -illumines what he has already written, and the surprises which one feels -may be in store in his future work. His feelings have already so much -variety and so much apparent sincerity that it is impossible to tell in -what direction his genius will develop. In whatever style he -writes,—the mystical, the historical-dramatic, the impassioned -description of natural beauty, the ballad, the love lyric,—he has the -peculiarity of seeming in each style to have found the truest expression -of himself.”—<i>Louisville Courier-Journal.</i></p> - -<p class="c"> -<i>PUBLISHED BY</i><br /> -THE MACMILLAN COMPANY<br /> -Sixty-four and Sixty-six Fifth Avenue, New York<br /> -</p> - -<hr /> - -<p class="nind"><b><big>A History of<br /> -English Poetry</big></b></p> - -<p class="cb">BY W. J. COURTHOPE, C.B., D.Litt., LL.D.</p> - -<p class="c">Late Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford</p> - -<p class="rt"> -<i>Cloth, 8vo, $3.25 net per volume</i><br /> -</p> - -<p class="hang">VOLUME I. The Middle Ages—Influence of the Roman Empire—The -Encyclopædic Education of the Church—The Feudal System.</p> - -<p class="hang">VOLUME II. The Renaissance and the Reformation—Influence of the -Court and the Universities.</p> - -<p class="hang">VOLUME III. English Poetry in the Seventeenth Century—Decadent -Influence of the Feudal Monarchy—Growth of the National Genius.</p> - -<p class="hang">VOLUME IV. Development and Decline of the Poetic Drama—Influence -of the Court and the People.</p> - -<p class="hang">VOLUME V. The Constitutional Compromise of the Eighteenth -Century—Effects of the Classical Renaissance—Its Zenith and -Decline—The Early Romantic Renaissance.</p> - -<p>“It is his privilege to have made a contribution of great value and -signal importance to the history of English Literature.”—<i>Pall Mall -Gazette.</i></p> - -<p class="c"> -<i>PUBLISHED BY</i><br /> -THE MACMILLAN COMPANY<br /> -Sixty-four and Sixty-six Fifth Avenue, New York<br /> -</p> - -<hr /> - -<p class="cb"><big>RECENT POETRY</big></p> - -<p class="cb">DAWSON—The Worker and Other Poems</p> - -<p class="c"><span class="smcap">By</span> CONINGSBY WILLIAM DAWSON</p> - -<p class="rt"> -<i>Cloth, 12mo, $1.25 net; by mail, $1.35</i><br /> -</p> - -<p>“The volume cannot be opened anywhere without yielding verse that will -repay the reading.”—<i>Courier-Journal.</i></p> - -<p> </p> -<p class="nind"><b>FALLAW—Silverleaf and Oa</b>k</p> - -<p class="c"><span class="smcap">By</span> LANCE FALLAW</p> - -<p class="rt"> -<i>Cloth, 12mo, $1.25</i><br /> -</p> - -<p>In the title of this book “Silverleaf” stands for South Africa, and -“Oak” for England.</p> - -<p> </p> -<p class="nind"><b>NEIDIG—The First Wardens</b></p> - -<p class="c"><span class="smcap">Poems by</span> WILLIAM J. NEIDIG</p> - -<p>A volume of unusual quality of imagination and style, strongly marked -with the author’s individuality.—<i>Inter-Ocean.</i></p> - -<p> </p> -<p class="nind"><b>IRWIN—Random Rhymes and Odd Numbers</b></p> - -<p class="c"><span class="smcap">By</span> WALLACE IRWIN</p> - -<p>“Inimitable jingles, deftly apropos, droll and satiric, striking a -humorous note that sounds of genius.”—<i>Philadelphia Press.</i></p> - -<p class="rt"> -<i>Illustrated. 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