| |
| THE CHILDREN awoke in their dreaming | |
| While earth lay dewy and still: | |
| They followed the rill in its gleaming | |
| To the heart-light of the hill. | |
| |
| Its sounds and sights were forsaking | 5 |
| The world as they faded in sleep, | |
| When they heard a music breaking | |
| Out from the heart-light deep. | |
| |
| It ran where the rill in its flowing | |
| Under the star-light gay, | 10 |
| With wonderful colour was glowing | |
| Like the bubbles they blew in their play. | |
| |
| From the misty mountain under | |
| Shot gleams of an opal star; | |
| Its pathways of rainbow wonder | 15 |
| Rayed to their feet from afar. | |
| |
| From their feet as they strayed in the meadow | |
| It led through caverned aisles, | |
| Filled with purple and green light and shadow | |
| For mystic miles on miles. | 20 |
| |
| The children were glad: it was lonely | |
| To play on the hillside by day. | |
| “But now,” they said, “we have only | |
| To go where the good people stray.” | |
| |
| For all the hillside was haunted | 25 |
| By the faery folk come again; | |
| And down in the heart-light enchanted | |
| Were opal-coloured men. | |
| |
| They moved like kings unattended | |
| Without a squire or dame, | 30 |
| But they wore tiaras splendid | |
| With feathers of starlight flame. | |
| |
| They laughed at the children over | |
| And called them into the heart. | |
| “Come down here, each sleepless rover; | 35 |
| We will show you some of our art.” | |
| |
| And down through the cool of the mountain | |
| The children sank at the call, | |
| And stood in a blazing fountain | |
| And never a mountain at all. | 40 |
| |
| The lights were coming and going | |
| In many a shining strand, | |
| For the opal fire-kings were blowing | |
| The darkness out of the land. | |
| |
| This golden breath was a madness | 45 |
| To set a poet on fire; | |
| And this was a cure for sadness, | |
| And that the ease of desire. | |
| |
| They said as dawn glimmered hoary, | |
| “We will show yourselves for an hour.” | 50 |
| And the children were changed to a glory | |
| By the beautiful magic of power. | |
| |
| The fire-kings smiled on their faces | |
| And called them by olden names, | |
| Till they towered like the starry races | 55 |
| All plumed with the twilight flames. | |
| |
| They talked for a while together | |
| How the toil of ages oppressed, | |
| And of how they best could weather | |
| The ship of the world to its rest. | 60 |
| |
| The dawn in the room was straying: | |
| The children began to blink, | |
| When they heard a far voice saying | |
| “You can grow like that if you think.” | |
| |
| The sun came in yellow and gay light: | 65 |
| They tumbled out of the cot: | |
| And half of the dream went with daylight | |
| And half was never forgot. | |
| |
