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.