Volume I Part 19 (1/2)
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 s.h.i.+ning 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
Hus.h.!.+ 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.