Earth calls us once again, And, through the mystic Gleam, The grey old City of mortal pain Dawns on the heavenly dream.

Sweet as the voice of birds At dawn, the years return, With little songs and sacred words Of human hearts that yearn.

The sweet same waves resound Along our earthly sh.o.r.e; But now this earth we lost and found Is heaven for evermore.

Hark! how the cosmic choir, In sea and flower and sun, Recalls that triumph of desire Which made all music one:

One universal soul, Completing joy with pain, And harmonising with the Whole The temporal refrain,

Until from hill and plain, From bud and blossom and tree, From shadow and shining after rain, From cloud and clovered bee, From earth and sea and sky, From laughter and from tears, One molten golden harmony Fulfils the yearning years.

_Love, of whom death had birth, See now, is life not sweet?

Love, is this heaven or earth?

Both are beneath thy feet._

_In other worlds I loved you, long ago; Love that hath no beginning hath no end; The sea-waves whisper, low and sweet and low, In other worlds I loved you, long ago; The May-boughs murmur and the roses know The message that the dawning moon shall send; In other worlds I loved you, long ago; Love that hath no beginning hath no end._

THE FOREST OF WILD THYME

_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 j.a.pan, 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 n.o.ble 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.

G.o.d 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 paG.o.das 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 j.a.pan once more He voyaged from the dim blue sh.o.r.e, 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 d.i.c.k, 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 d.i.c.k it was who bade us try, d.i.c.k made it all seem plain and clear, And d.i.c.k 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 pa.s.sed, 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 pa.s.s Through jungles of the golden gra.s.s.

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.