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-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_

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-Sixty-four and Sixty-six Fifth Avenue, New York

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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 65592 ***
+
+                        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. H.
+     Sothern and Madame Bertha Kalich.
+
+=Mr. STEPHEN PHILLIPS’S= _POETIC PLAYS_
+
+
+=Ulysses=: A Drama
+
+_Cloth, gilt top, $1.25 net_
+
+
+The Sin of David
+
+_Cloth, gilt top, $1.25 net_
+
+
+Nero
+
+_Cloth, gilt top, $1.25 net_
+
+=Mr. WILLIAM B. YEATS’S= _COLLECTED POEMS_
+
+Volume I: =Lyrical Poems=
+Volume II: =Dramas in Verse=:--
+
+     “The Countess Cathleen”--“The Land of Heart’s Desire”--“The King’s
+     Threshold”--“On Baile’s Strand” and “The Shadowy Waters.”
+
+_Each volume, cloth, $1.25 net_
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 65592 ***
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-  The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Flower of Old Japan, by Alfred Noyes.

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-<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Flower of Old Japan, by Alfred Noyes</div>

-

-<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>

-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 <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>

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-

-<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>&nbsp; </p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_ii" id="page_ii">{ii}</a></span>&nbsp; </p>

-

-<p class="c">THE FLOWER OF OLD JAPAN</p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_iii" id="page_iii">{iii}</a></span>&nbsp;</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 &amp; 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 &amp; Co.&mdash;Berwick &amp; 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">&mdash;<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>&nbsp; </p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_ix" id="page_ix">{ix}</a></span>&nbsp; </p>

-

-<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE</h2>

-

-<p><span class="smcap">It</span> is a perilous adventure&mdash;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:&mdash;</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&mdash;whether the attempt be a success or a failure&mdash;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&mdash;as the <i>Spectator</i> put it&mdash;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&mdash;as a kinder critic

-has remarked&mdash;‘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&mdash;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&mdash;<i>What does it take to make a rose?</i>&mdash;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&mdash;as it were&mdash;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&mdash;however insignificant they may be to others&mdash;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&mdash;if any care to call them so&mdash;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>&nbsp; </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&mdash;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&mdash;<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&mdash;<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!&mdash;<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&mdash;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">These vanishing blossoms&mdash;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&mdash;</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&mdash;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>&mdash;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>&nbsp; </p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_65" id="page_65">{65}</a></span>&nbsp; </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>&nbsp; </p>

-

-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_67" id="page_67">{67}</a></span>&nbsp; </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&mdash;if we meet a fairy there&mdash;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>&mdash;<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">&mdash;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>&mdash;<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&mdash;she looked so wise&mdash;<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>&mdash;<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,&mdash;<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&mdash;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&mdash;at just a child’s command&mdash;<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&mdash;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&mdash;the ancient fairy theme&mdash;<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&mdash;we could not tell&mdash;<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&mdash;we knew&mdash;<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&mdash;we knew it by the rhyme<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Must be&mdash;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&mdash;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,&mdash;<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&mdash;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!&mdash;<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&mdash;ah! could it be the same<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">Cockchafer we used to know?&mdash;<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,&mdash;</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&mdash;<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&mdash;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,”&mdash;<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&mdash;I&mdash;know&mdash;the&mdash;thing&mdash;you&mdash;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&mdash;there&mdash;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&mdash;see, the tears are in my eyes!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Dead yearnings are such dreadful things, let’s keep ’em all alive,&mdash;<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.&mdash;<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&mdash;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,&mdash;<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&mdash;“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:&mdash;<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&mdash;in a different dream from theirs&mdash;<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&mdash;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Love&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;singing your song&mdash;tender and sweet and low!</i><br /></span>

-<span class="i0"><i>Fairies must die! Ask ye not why&mdash;ye that have hurt her so.</i><br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i2">Passing away&mdash;<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&mdash;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&mdash;<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&mdash;<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&mdash;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,&mdash;<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&mdash;<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&mdash;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&mdash;<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&mdash;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&mdash;full song&mdash;it was out!<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">It roared from the starry roundabout&mdash;<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,&mdash;</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&mdash;<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&mdash;<br /></span>

-<span class="i2">The Temple of the Smallest Flower.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">And there&mdash;alas&mdash;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,&mdash;<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&mdash;<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&mdash;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?&mdash;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&mdash;<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&mdash;as it seemed&mdash;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&mdash;<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">“See, they are sleeping by the side<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Of that dear little one&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;“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&mdash;<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.&mdash;<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0"><i>The wise men came to greet him with their gifts of myrrh and frankincense,&mdash;</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&mdash;<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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;even me&mdash;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&mdash;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,&mdash;the mystical, the historical-dramatic, the impassioned

-description of natural beauty, the ballad, the love lyric,&mdash;he has the

-peculiarity of seeming in each style to have found the truest expression

-of himself.”&mdash;<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&mdash;Influence of the Roman Empire&mdash;The

-Encyclopædic Education of the Church&mdash;The Feudal System.</p>

-

-<p class="hang">VOLUME II. The Renaissance and the Reformation&mdash;Influence of the

-Court and the Universities.</p>

-

-<p class="hang">VOLUME III. English Poetry in the Seventeenth Century&mdash;Decadent

-Influence of the Feudal Monarchy&mdash;Growth of the National Genius.</p>

-

-<p class="hang">VOLUME IV. Development and Decline of the Poetic Drama&mdash;Influence

-of the Court and the People.</p>

-

-<p class="hang">VOLUME V. The Constitutional Compromise of the Eighteenth

-Century&mdash;Effects of the Classical Renaissance&mdash;Its Zenith and

-Decline&mdash;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.”&mdash;<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&mdash;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.”&mdash;<i>Courier-Journal.</i></p>

-

-<p>&nbsp;</p>

-<p class="nind"><b>FALLAW&mdash;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>&nbsp;</p>

-<p class="nind"><b>NEIDIG&mdash;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.&mdash;<i>Inter-Ocean.</i></p>

-

-<p>&nbsp;</p>

-<p class="nind"><b>IRWIN&mdash;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.”&mdash;<i>Philadelphia Press.</i></p>

-

-<p class="rt">

-<i>Illustrated. Cloth, 12mo, $1.50 net</i><br />

-<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_176" id="page_176">{176}</a></span></p>

-

-<hr />

-

-<p class="cb"><big>RECENT POETIC DRAMAS</big></p>

-

-<p class="nind">By Mr. PERCY MACKAYE</p>

-

-<p><b>The Canterbury Pilgrims</b>: A Comedy</p>

-

-<p class="rt">

-<i>Cloth, illustrated, $1.25 net</i><br />

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-</p>

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-<p>

-<i>Illustrated, cloth, 12mo, $1.25</i><br />

-</p>

-

-<p class="c">

-Presented by E. H. Sothern and Julia Marlowe<br />

-</p>

-

-<p><b>Sappho and Phaon</b></p>

-

-<p>

-<i>12mo, cloth, $1.25</i><br />

-</p>

-

-<p class="c">The play was accepted before publication for presentation by E. H.

-Sothern and Madame Bertha Kalich.</p>

-<p>&nbsp;</p>

-<p><b>Mr. STEPHEN PHILLIPS’S</b> <i>POETIC PLAYS</i></p>

-

-<p><b>Ulysses</b>: A Drama</p>

-

-<p class="rt">

-<i>Cloth, gilt top, $1.25 net</i><br />

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-

-<p class="rt">

-<i>Cloth, gilt top, $1.25 net</i><br />

-</p>

-

-<p><b>Mr. WILLIAM B. YEATS’S</b> <i>COLLECTED POEMS</i></p>

-

-<p class="nind">

-Volume I: <b>Lyrical Poems</b><br />

-Volume II: <b>Dramas in Verse</b>:&mdash;<br />

-</p>

-

-<p>“The Countess Cathleen”&mdash;“The Land of Heart’s Desire”&mdash;“The King’s

-Threshold”&mdash;“On Baile’s Strand” and “The Shadowy Waters.”</p>

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+  <head>  <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" />
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" />
+<title>
+  The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Flower of Old Japan, by Alfred Noyes.
+</title>
+<style type="text/css">
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+.poem span.i7     {display: block; margin-left: 7em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+<body>
+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 65592 ***</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>&nbsp; </p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_ii" id="page_ii">{ii}</a></span>&nbsp; </p>
+
+<p class="c">THE FLOWER OF OLD JAPAN</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_iii" id="page_iii">{iii}</a></span>&nbsp;</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 &amp; 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 &amp; Co.&mdash;Berwick &amp; 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">&mdash;<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>&nbsp; </p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_ix" id="page_ix">{ix}</a></span>&nbsp; </p>
+
+<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE</h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">It</span> is a perilous adventure&mdash;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:&mdash;</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&mdash;whether the attempt be a success or a failure&mdash;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&mdash;as the <i>Spectator</i> put it&mdash;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&mdash;as a kinder critic
+has remarked&mdash;‘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&mdash;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&mdash;<i>What does it take to make a rose?</i>&mdash;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&mdash;as it were&mdash;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&mdash;however insignificant they may be to others&mdash;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&mdash;if any care to call them so&mdash;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>&nbsp; </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&mdash;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&mdash;<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&mdash;<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!&mdash;<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&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">These vanishing blossoms&mdash;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&mdash;</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&mdash;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>&mdash;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>&nbsp; </p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_65" id="page_65">{65}</a></span>&nbsp; </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>&nbsp; </p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_67" id="page_67">{67}</a></span>&nbsp; </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&mdash;if we meet a fairy there&mdash;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>&mdash;<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">&mdash;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>&mdash;<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&mdash;she looked so wise&mdash;<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>&mdash;<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,&mdash;<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&mdash;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&mdash;at just a child’s command&mdash;<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&mdash;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&mdash;the ancient fairy theme&mdash;<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&mdash;we could not tell&mdash;<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&mdash;we knew&mdash;<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&mdash;we knew it by the rhyme<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Must be&mdash;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&mdash;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,&mdash;<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&mdash;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!&mdash;<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&mdash;ah! could it be the same<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Cockchafer we used to know?&mdash;<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,&mdash;</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&mdash;<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&mdash;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,”&mdash;<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&mdash;I&mdash;know&mdash;the&mdash;thing&mdash;you&mdash;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&mdash;there&mdash;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&mdash;see, the tears are in my eyes!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dead yearnings are such dreadful things, let’s keep ’em all alive,&mdash;<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.&mdash;<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&mdash;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,&mdash;<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&mdash;“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:&mdash;<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&mdash;in a different dream from theirs&mdash;<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&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Love&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;singing your song&mdash;tender and sweet and low!</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Fairies must die! Ask ye not why&mdash;ye that have hurt her so.</i><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Passing away&mdash;<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&mdash;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&mdash;<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&mdash;<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&mdash;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,&mdash;<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&mdash;<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&mdash;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&mdash;<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&mdash;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&mdash;full song&mdash;it was out!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It roared from the starry roundabout&mdash;<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,&mdash;</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&mdash;<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&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The Temple of the Smallest Flower.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And there&mdash;alas&mdash;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,&mdash;<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&mdash;<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&mdash;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?&mdash;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&mdash;<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&mdash;as it seemed&mdash;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&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">“See, they are sleeping by the side<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of that dear little one&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;“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&mdash;<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.&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>The wise men came to greet him with their gifts of myrrh and frankincense,&mdash;</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&mdash;<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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;even me&mdash;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&mdash;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,&mdash;the mystical, the historical-dramatic, the impassioned
+description of natural beauty, the ballad, the love lyric,&mdash;he has the
+peculiarity of seeming in each style to have found the truest expression
+of himself.”&mdash;<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&mdash;Influence of the Roman Empire&mdash;The
+Encyclopædic Education of the Church&mdash;The Feudal System.</p>
+
+<p class="hang">VOLUME II. The Renaissance and the Reformation&mdash;Influence of the
+Court and the Universities.</p>
+
+<p class="hang">VOLUME III. English Poetry in the Seventeenth Century&mdash;Decadent
+Influence of the Feudal Monarchy&mdash;Growth of the National Genius.</p>
+
+<p class="hang">VOLUME IV. Development and Decline of the Poetic Drama&mdash;Influence
+of the Court and the People.</p>
+
+<p class="hang">VOLUME V. The Constitutional Compromise of the Eighteenth
+Century&mdash;Effects of the Classical Renaissance&mdash;Its Zenith and
+Decline&mdash;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.”&mdash;<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&mdash;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.”&mdash;<i>Courier-Journal.</i></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="nind"><b>FALLAW&mdash;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>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="nind"><b>NEIDIG&mdash;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.&mdash;<i>Inter-Ocean.</i></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="nind"><b>IRWIN&mdash;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.”&mdash;<i>Philadelphia Press.</i></p>
+
+<p class="rt">
+<i>Illustrated. Cloth, 12mo, $1.50 net</i><br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_176" id="page_176">{176}</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cb"><big>RECENT POETIC DRAMAS</big></p>
+
+<p class="nind">By Mr. PERCY MACKAYE</p>
+
+<p><b>The Canterbury Pilgrims</b>: A Comedy</p>
+
+<p class="rt">
+<i>Cloth, illustrated, $1.25 net</i><br />
+</p>
+
+<p><b>Fenris, the Wolf</b>: A Tragedy</p>
+
+<p class="rt">
+<i>Cloth, 12mo, $1.25 net</i><br />
+</p>
+
+<p><b>Jeanne d’Arc</b></p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Illustrated, cloth, 12mo, $1.25</i><br />
+</p>
+
+<p class="c">
+Presented by E. H. Sothern and Julia Marlowe<br />
+</p>
+
+<p><b>Sappho and Phaon</b></p>
+
+<p>
+<i>12mo, cloth, $1.25</i><br />
+</p>
+
+<p class="c">The play was accepted before publication for presentation by E. H.
+Sothern and Madame Bertha Kalich.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><b>Mr. STEPHEN PHILLIPS’S</b> <i>POETIC PLAYS</i></p>
+
+<p><b>Ulysses</b>: A Drama</p>
+
+<p class="rt">
+<i>Cloth, gilt top, $1.25 net</i><br />
+</p>
+
+<p><b>The Sin of David</b></p>
+
+<p class="rt">
+<i>Cloth, gilt top, $1.25 net</i><br />
+</p>
+
+<p><b>Nero</b></p>
+
+<p class="rt">
+<i>Cloth, gilt top, $1.25 net</i><br />
+</p>
+
+<p><b>Mr. WILLIAM B. YEATS’S</b> <i>COLLECTED POEMS</i></p>
+
+<p class="nind">
+Volume I: <b>Lyrical Poems</b><br />
+Volume II: <b>Dramas in Verse</b>:&mdash;<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>“The Countess Cathleen”&mdash;“The Land of Heart’s Desire”&mdash;“The King’s
+Threshold”&mdash;“On Baile’s Strand” and “The Shadowy Waters.”</p>
+
+<p class="rt">
+<i>Each volume, cloth, $1.25 net</i><br />
+</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 65592 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+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._
+
+
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+
+BY LANCE FALLAW
+
+_Cloth, 12mo, $1.25_
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+In the title of this book “Silverleaf” stands for South Africa, and
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+
+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
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+
+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. H.
+     Sothern and Madame Bertha Kalich.
+
+=Mr. STEPHEN PHILLIPS’S= _POETIC PLAYS_
+
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+
+=Mr. WILLIAM B. YEATS’S= _COLLECTED POEMS_
+
+Volume I: =Lyrical Poems=
+Volume II: =Dramas in Verse=:--
+
+     “The Countess Cathleen”--“The Land of Heart’s Desire”--“The King’s
+     Threshold”--“On Baile’s Strand” and “The Shadowy Waters.”
+
+_Each volume, cloth, $1.25 net_
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+  The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Flower of Old Japan, by Alfred Noyes.
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+
+<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Flower of Old Japan, by Alfred Noyes</div>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you
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+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>
+
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+
+<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>&nbsp; </p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_ii" id="page_ii">{ii}</a></span>&nbsp; </p>
+
+<p class="c">THE FLOWER OF OLD JAPAN</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_iii" id="page_iii">{iii}</a></span>&nbsp;</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 &amp; 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 &amp; Co.&mdash;Berwick &amp; 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">&mdash;<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>&nbsp; </p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_ix" id="page_ix">{ix}</a></span>&nbsp; </p>
+
+<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE</h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">It</span> is a perilous adventure&mdash;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:&mdash;</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&mdash;whether the attempt be a success or a failure&mdash;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&mdash;as the <i>Spectator</i> put it&mdash;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&mdash;as a kinder critic
+has remarked&mdash;‘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&mdash;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&mdash;<i>What does it take to make a rose?</i>&mdash;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&mdash;as it were&mdash;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&mdash;however insignificant they may be to others&mdash;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&mdash;if any care to call them so&mdash;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>&nbsp; </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&mdash;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&mdash;<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&mdash;<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!&mdash;<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&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">These vanishing blossoms&mdash;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&mdash;</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&mdash;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>&mdash;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>&nbsp; </p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_65" id="page_65">{65}</a></span>&nbsp; </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>&nbsp; </p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_67" id="page_67">{67}</a></span>&nbsp; </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&mdash;if we meet a fairy there&mdash;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>&mdash;<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">&mdash;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>&mdash;<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&mdash;she looked so wise&mdash;<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>&mdash;<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,&mdash;<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&mdash;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&mdash;at just a child’s command&mdash;<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&mdash;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&mdash;the ancient fairy theme&mdash;<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&mdash;we could not tell&mdash;<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&mdash;we knew&mdash;<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&mdash;we knew it by the rhyme<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Must be&mdash;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&mdash;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,&mdash;<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&mdash;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!&mdash;<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&mdash;ah! could it be the same<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Cockchafer we used to know?&mdash;<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,&mdash;</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&mdash;<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&mdash;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,”&mdash;<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&mdash;I&mdash;know&mdash;the&mdash;thing&mdash;you&mdash;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&mdash;there&mdash;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&mdash;see, the tears are in my eyes!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Dead yearnings are such dreadful things, let’s keep ’em all alive,&mdash;<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.&mdash;<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&mdash;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,&mdash;<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&mdash;“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:&mdash;<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&mdash;in a different dream from theirs&mdash;<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&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Love&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;singing your song&mdash;tender and sweet and low!</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Fairies must die! Ask ye not why&mdash;ye that have hurt her so.</i><br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Passing away&mdash;<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&mdash;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&mdash;<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&mdash;<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&mdash;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,&mdash;<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&mdash;<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&mdash;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&mdash;<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&mdash;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&mdash;full song&mdash;it was out!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It roared from the starry roundabout&mdash;<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,&mdash;</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&mdash;<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&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The Temple of the Smallest Flower.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And there&mdash;alas&mdash;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,&mdash;<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&mdash;<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&mdash;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?&mdash;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&mdash;<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&mdash;as it seemed&mdash;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&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">“See, they are sleeping by the side<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of that dear little one&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;“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&mdash;<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.&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>The wise men came to greet him with their gifts of myrrh and frankincense,&mdash;</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&mdash;<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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;even me&mdash;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&mdash;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,&mdash;the mystical, the historical-dramatic, the impassioned
+description of natural beauty, the ballad, the love lyric,&mdash;he has the
+peculiarity of seeming in each style to have found the truest expression
+of himself.”&mdash;<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&mdash;Influence of the Roman Empire&mdash;The
+Encyclopædic Education of the Church&mdash;The Feudal System.</p>
+
+<p class="hang">VOLUME II. The Renaissance and the Reformation&mdash;Influence of the
+Court and the Universities.</p>
+
+<p class="hang">VOLUME III. English Poetry in the Seventeenth Century&mdash;Decadent
+Influence of the Feudal Monarchy&mdash;Growth of the National Genius.</p>
+
+<p class="hang">VOLUME IV. Development and Decline of the Poetic Drama&mdash;Influence
+of the Court and the People.</p>
+
+<p class="hang">VOLUME V. The Constitutional Compromise of the Eighteenth
+Century&mdash;Effects of the Classical Renaissance&mdash;Its Zenith and
+Decline&mdash;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.”&mdash;<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&mdash;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.”&mdash;<i>Courier-Journal.</i></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="nind"><b>FALLAW&mdash;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>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="nind"><b>NEIDIG&mdash;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.&mdash;<i>Inter-Ocean.</i></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="nind"><b>IRWIN&mdash;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.”&mdash;<i>Philadelphia Press.</i></p>
+
+<p class="rt">
+<i>Illustrated. Cloth, 12mo, $1.50 net</i><br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_176" id="page_176">{176}</a></span></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="cb"><big>RECENT POETIC DRAMAS</big></p>
+
+<p class="nind">By Mr. PERCY MACKAYE</p>
+
+<p><b>The Canterbury Pilgrims</b>: A Comedy</p>
+
+<p class="rt">
+<i>Cloth, illustrated, $1.25 net</i><br />
+</p>
+
+<p><b>Fenris, the Wolf</b>: A Tragedy</p>
+
+<p class="rt">
+<i>Cloth, 12mo, $1.25 net</i><br />
+</p>
+
+<p><b>Jeanne d’Arc</b></p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Illustrated, cloth, 12mo, $1.25</i><br />
+</p>
+
+<p class="c">
+Presented by E. H. Sothern and Julia Marlowe<br />
+</p>
+
+<p><b>Sappho and Phaon</b></p>
+
+<p>
+<i>12mo, cloth, $1.25</i><br />
+</p>
+
+<p class="c">The play was accepted before publication for presentation by E. H.
+Sothern and Madame Bertha Kalich.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><b>Mr. STEPHEN PHILLIPS’S</b> <i>POETIC PLAYS</i></p>
+
+<p><b>Ulysses</b>: A Drama</p>
+
+<p class="rt">
+<i>Cloth, gilt top, $1.25 net</i><br />
+</p>
+
+<p><b>The Sin of David</b></p>
+
+<p class="rt">
+<i>Cloth, gilt top, $1.25 net</i><br />
+</p>
+
+<p><b>Nero</b></p>
+
+<p class="rt">
+<i>Cloth, gilt top, $1.25 net</i><br />
+</p>
+
+<p><b>Mr. WILLIAM B. YEATS’S</b> <i>COLLECTED POEMS</i></p>
+
+<p class="nind">
+Volume I: <b>Lyrical Poems</b><br />
+Volume II: <b>Dramas in Verse</b>:&mdash;<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>“The Countess Cathleen”&mdash;“The Land of Heart’s Desire”&mdash;“The King’s
+Threshold”&mdash;“On Baile’s Strand” and “The Shadowy Waters.”</p>
+
+<p class="rt">
+<i>Each volume, cloth, $1.25 net</i><br />
+</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
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