—­June 15, 1896

The Dream of the Children

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
        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
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
        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.

The children were glad; it was lonely
        To play on the hill-side by day. 
“But now,” they said, “we have only
        To go where the good people stray.”

For all the hill-side was haunted
        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,
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: 
        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.

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
        To set a poet on fire,
And this was a cure for sadness,
        And that the ease of desire.

And all night long over Eri
        They fought with the wand of light
And love that never grew weary
        The evil things of night.

They said, as dawn glimmered hoary,
        “We will show yourselves for an hour;”
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
        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.

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!”