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Title: The Forest Of Wild Thyme
Author: Alfred Noyes [
More Titles by Noyes]
DEDICATED TO HELEN, ROSIE, AND BEATRIX
PERSONS OF THE TALE
OURSELVES
FATHER
MOTHER
LITTLE BOY BLUE
THE HIDEOUS HERMIT
THE KING OF FAIRY-LAND
PEASE-BLOSSOM
MUSTARD-SEED
Dragons, Fairies, Mammoths, Angels, etc.
APOLOGIA
One more hour to wander free
With Puck on his unbridled bee
Thro' heather-forests, leagues of bloom,
Our childhood's maze of scent and sun!
Forbear awhile your notes of doom,
Dear Critics, give me still this one
Swift hour to hunt the fairy gleam
That flutters thro' the unfettered 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
O, 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 battle-ships 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 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
Crooked 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 aery 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 open 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 of 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 faery 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 Faery 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 the 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;
So 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 crooning 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 King of Kings, no longer thronged with angel wings,
But crooning 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._
[The end]
Alfred Noyes's poem: Forest Of Wild Thyme
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