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.