And the feathery billows of blue-gold grass
Bowed and murmured and bade them pass,
Where a sigh of the sea-wind softly told them
There is no Time—Time never was.
And what if a sorrow were tolled to rest
Where the rich light mellowed away in the West,
As a glory of fruit in an autumn orchard
Heaped and asleep o'er the sea's ripe breast?
Why should they heed it, what should they know
Of the years that come or the years that go,
With the warm blue sky around and above them
And the wild thyme whispering to and fro?
For they heard in the dreamy dawn of day
A fairy harper faintly play,
Follow me, follow me, little children,
Over the hills and far away;
Where the dew is bright on the heather-bells,
And the breeze in the clover sways and swells,
As the waves on the blue sea wake and wander,
Over and under the braes and dells.
And the hare-bells tinkled and rang Ding dong
Bell in the dell as they danced along,
And their feet were stained on the hills with honey,
And crushing the clover till evensong.
And, oh the ripples that rolled in rhyme
Under the wild blue banks of thyme,
To the answering rhyme of the rolling ocean's
Golden glory of change and chime!
For they came to a stream and her fairy lover
Caught at her hand and swung her over,
And the broad wet buttercups laughed and gilded
Their golden knees in the deep sweet clover.
There was never a lavrock up in the skies
Blithe as the laugh of their lips and eyes,
As they glanced and glittered across the meadows
To waken the sleepy butterflies.
There was never a wave on the sea so gay
As the light that danced on their homeward way
Where the waving ferns were a fairy forest
And a thousand years as yesterday.