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 IE PURE 
 
 
 
 D. M. ROSS 
 
 
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 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
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 Hearts of the Pure
 
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 Hearts of the Pure 
 
 BY 
 
 D. M. ROSS, 
 
 Author of 
 "The Afterglow," "The Promise of the Star," etc. 
 
 THE WALTER SCOTT PUBLISHING CO., LTD., 
 London (Paternoster Square, E.C.) and Felling-on-Tyne. 
 
 Melbourne : 
 THOMAS C. LOTHIAN. 
 
 \9\\. 
 
 
 PRINTED IN ENGLAND.
 
 P8 
 
 ^n3X 
 
 DEDICATED 
 
 BY PERMISSION 
 TO 
 
 MADAM MELBA. 
 
 I have felt the clasp of a loyal hand; 
 I have looked into brave eyes; 
 I have made a noble friend. 
 
 1 561 852
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 HEARTS OF THE PURE - ... 9 
 
 TO EVA LYNN ..... 14 
 
 GOOD-NIGHT - - - - - - 18 
 
 EVA LYNN ...... ig 
 
 ROSES ..--... 22 
 
 THE MASTER AND THE FLOWERS - - - 25 
 
 THE ROSE OF PARADISE - - - - 29 
 
 WHERE THE FAIRIES PLAY - - - - 30 
 
 YOU AND I AND THE ANGELS - - - 32 
 
 THE RIVER OF STARS " " " " 33 
 
 SONG OF JESUS ----- 34 
 
 TWINKLE, THE STAR . - - - - 38 
 
 THE WIND, AND WHEN IT SPOKE - - - 46 
 
 THE WIND ...... 50 
 
 WOO, THE LOVE OF MAN - - - - 52 
 
 LOVE ..----. 58 
 
 LOVE THAT WAS ILL - - - - - 60 
 
 THE LITTLE FOLKS WHO CAME - - - 61 
 
 THE RAINBOW BRIDGE - - - - 67 
 
 LITTLE BO-PEEP ..... 70 
 
 THE LITTLE BUILDERS - - - - 72 
 
 THE LITTLE BUILDERS - - - - 76 
 
 ASAMAN, THE BEGINNER OF DREAMS - - 77 
 
 THE DREAMER .... - 82 
 
 THE LOST VOICE . . - - - 84 
 
 EVA ..----- 90 
 
 BURN THE WIND ----- 93
 
 TO DAVID ROSS. 
 
 To me the smiles of happy children have always 
 been as the flowers of Paradise. 
 
 In your book for the pure of heart, you have 
 made a radiant garden, where the smile of a joyous 
 child lurks in every blossom. 
 
 Happy gardener ! 
 
 NELLIE MELBA.
 
 Hearts of the Pure. 
 
 Hearts of the Fure were of a little kingdom at 
 the beg-inning : they were a little army on the 
 march — the army of childhood. Their battle-hymns 
 had in them tears as well as triumph, their battles 
 defeat as well as victory; yet the army has been 
 growing and growing, and marching and march- 
 ing, until its legions now overspread the world. 
 
 When I began this book I thought to tell only 
 of pleasant things that would make joy for you — 
 of pleasant things perhaps in a fantastic way — of 
 pleasant things that still held in their pleasantness 
 some wisdom that you might discern now and 
 later on. This, and this only, would soon make 
 Life appear to you as something that had been 
 hidden away from you as an ugly thing. 
 
 So I thought, and I thought it would be better 
 to tell the truth even of sorrow, and to show the 
 big joy that is in and around us all — that Life is 
 a book paged with sorrow and with joy, and that 
 you should not skip the sorrowy pages, but read 
 them faithfully, so tliat you might have a true 
 knowledge of the great book.
 
 lo HEARTS OF THE PURE. 
 
 They say hearts of the pure should know only 
 joy, and that they will learn of sorrow soon enough, 
 but the knowledge of sorrow cannot be kept from 
 them. It comes to them early, and their sorrows 
 are intense. I know, for I was a little while of 
 their kingdom, and of their army that marches with 
 banners. Though I have told you there is sorrow 
 in the world, I have not told you to make you 
 sorrowful, because in your heart is that which over- 
 comes sorrow as the day overcomes the night — 
 even love. 
 
 And I have not told you anything new, though 
 your eyes are wide and wondering. 
 
 I must pass, however, from my little sermon to 
 the coming of things into Life. 
 
 Things began to come into mine long ago, though 
 I have the child-heart still. 
 
 A ridge that in one place bounded our little farm 
 was fenced with a rail fence on which the gray 
 mosses grew and the ground-larks perched, and 
 on summer days I often walked with little steps to 
 that boundary of my kingdom and sat upon the 
 topmost rail, swinging my bare feet — listening and 
 seeing and dreaming — getting knowledge from no 
 one knew where. 
 
 The sky was as the mouth of a great lighted 
 cave that held mysterious things — some seen and 
 some unseen. 
 
 The birds were a wonder, wheeling through the
 
 HEARTS OF THE PURE. ii 
 
 air or rising from their tree perches and sinking 
 again to them. 
 
 I remember my first skylark. 
 
 The first great sound that I heard was a far-off 
 humming that never ceased through the long after- 
 noon. It came from the land of the Giants, and 
 was the muffled sound of their roaring. They had 
 huge bodies, and big heads with goggle eyes stuck 
 in them. They were terrors in human shape that 
 could do no harm, for the sun had hammered 
 fetters on their ankles and their arms. One could 
 always think of them without being afraid. Indeed, 
 fear was then a thing that had not come into Life, 
 for fear never enters hearts of the pure. 
 
 Then it was from that rail-fence, old and moss- 
 grown, that I first saw the ocean, or a part of it, 
 blue between the blue hills down at the valley mouth. 
 
 Ships came from the shadow of one hill — ships 
 with sails — and passed away under the shadow of 
 the other hill, and I wondered if the ships went on 
 and on for ever, past the sea, into the clouds that 
 lay upon it. Then I seemed to learn, though it 
 was only remembering, that the sea I saw, the 
 self-same sea, had been there perhaps for years, 
 and that it would be there perhaps forever and 
 forever, even until I became a man — that the same 
 sun had risen out of it, the same moon and the 
 same stars, day by day and night by night, never 
 tiring, never growing dim — that the same wind
 
 12 HEARTS OF THE PURE. 
 
 had been through the ages touching its billows 
 into foam ; and the ocean called me with a loud 
 voice and the earth grew larger and the waters 
 about it wider when they told me there were other 
 islands and other oceans. 
 
 It was then that I made my child-vow to be a 
 sailor, the captain of a ship like any one of the 
 white-sailed gliding things I had seen passing from 
 hill to shadowy hill. 
 
 My first ship was a round turnip hollowed out, 
 with a single mast of reed, that carried stiffly a 
 leaf for a sail. It went spinning over the dam on 
 its rickety course. 
 
 As the water of my sea was deep enough to 
 drown me, I was taken away from the pleasantness 
 of that danger and the delight of my ship. That 
 was the first great sorrow that came. Yet I was 
 soon back again building new ships — the latter ones 
 of wood with calico sails. 
 
 The waves rose about them fearfully, and most 
 all foundered after bravely battling with the heavy 
 weather. 
 
 So life went on, and next I learned that there 
 had been children before me, and strange child- 
 hoods away back and away back, and men unlike 
 the men I saw, yet like, and women like yet unlike 
 the women I saw; but of these I will tell you in 
 other letters — letters written of the first Things that 
 came.
 
 HEARTS OF THE PURE. 13 
 
 Later, hunting among the fern in a gully that 
 seemed very deep to me then, I found a wild kitten 
 — a beautiful thing in fur, all black and soft, and 
 with blue eyes. It I took home in spite of a few 
 scratches, and treasured greatly, but one day when 
 I had gone out again hunting, it was given away 
 to a covetous neighbour. To others it was only a 
 kitten. To me it was the kitten above all cat 
 kittens. 
 
 That was my second great sorrow, and it has 
 remained with me, softened to regret, all through 
 the years. 
 
 You see that so far sorrowy pages in my book 
 were not many, yet I cannot say they found me 
 the meek and patient boy that some boys, it is 
 said, have been, though Love's hand was ever ready 
 to turn the leaves to a page of joy. Even now the 
 memory of that lost fantastic ship (with, I regret 
 to say, a prisoned lizard for captain and crew) and 
 the memory of the little kitten I never saw become 
 a cat, soften my heart to the tears of a child, and 
 when I see the tears fall I take the backwards way 
 into the dear old childhood's land and to the home 
 of Hearts of the Pure.
 
 To Eva Lynn. 
 
 My Dear Eva Lynn, 
 
 I have not seen your face except in a dream, 
 but I so longed to see you to-night that I have 
 written a song, or a little poem, with your name 
 and your face in it, and my soul. There are words 
 you may not quite understand, for as yet know- 
 ledge is lying like a shy playfellow in your deep, 
 dark eyes, but you will ask some of the " big guns " 
 of your town who come to see you, and they will 
 tell you quite gladly, for "big guns" are things 
 with long, hard muzzles, that look very wise and 
 solemn and that go off with a loud "bang" and 
 hit a target — occasionally. If I were there to play 
 with you I would be very glad. Such a long time 
 ago since I played. And then my games were 
 always running and striving and fighting games — 
 "One, two, three. You're a man for me" (with- 
 out the stops, of course). That was the pirate 
 getting his crew together to sail the seas in search 
 of pearls for coronals, Beche-de-mer (a hard, long- 
 limbed, stooping-shouldered word) for men on the 
 shores of the China seas, shells of the tortoise for 
 my lady's hair, and sandalwood and wood of ebony 
 — beautiful, for the homes of kings. 
 
 14
 
 TO EVA LYNN. 15 
 
 Then there was cock-fighting", in which one some- 
 times lost skin, and, on more glorious days, blood. 
 Later there was " shinty," with broken heads, which 
 was better — but it all meant one had to be quick, 
 and brave, and enduring, and all in much more 
 silence than these loud times would care about. 
 
 To my shame I must say that I do not know 
 much of girls' games, for as a boy I did not love 
 girls, being taught to look upon them as weak 
 things easily made to cry. I had seen them crying 
 just on being roughly spoken to, and the cane they 
 could not endure, having a trick of pulling the hand 
 away, as it was falling, that was laughable to the 
 other scholars and annoying to the masters. Only, 
 I have seen a sister looking very angry when a 
 sister was being thrashed, and I thought it unfair 
 that both should be punished for the fault of one, 
 being in the belief that often the ones who are not 
 struck with any blow that we can see, suffer the most. 
 
 Well, I would not laugh now at the sight of 
 pain, for all the world changed with the coming 
 of ^'071 into it. And I, who could jeer at the crying 
 of a girl then, would not now swing my cane too 
 wildly in crossing a field for fear of cutting the head 
 off a daisy — a daisy with his golden crown. 
 
 We must make joy, not sorrow, in the world; 
 for as many as make sorrow are hurting the great 
 heart of love, and keeping back the time of happi- 
 ness for all.
 
 1 6 TO EVA LYNN. 
 
 God gave us the birds, dear, to show us how 
 sorrow should be forg"otten and joy expressed, and 
 the sparrow may often tell you as much in his little 
 chirrup as the nightingale in his song. As for the 
 thrushes, they are bold and glorious. Though all 
 the earth were bankrupt they would sing, and make 
 the hardest and most unpromising Jew lend money 
 to get the Spring out of pawn. 
 
 I am eating cake late at night with the mice. 
 One day I vow I will kill them, and another that 
 I will get a cat to do the dirty work, but somehow 
 it seems unfair — first to the mice, then to the cat. 
 So we keep on eating late suppers, and afterwards 
 they play the piano when they are not nesting under 
 the keyboard. I am not as I am because thirty- 
 five years ago I read in my school-book that a 
 mouse helped a lion out of a net; that lesson was 
 lost on me, as many have been since — but because 
 I sometimes think their way of life is hard enough 
 at times. 
 
 They do not look at all like shopkeepers, and 
 those who have not the spirit of a shopkeeper see 
 much goods truly — through the windows. But there 
 are so many of us who want to idle. It is not 
 through laziness quite. When God is going by 
 among the flowers of the garden w-e like to see 
 Him — to look lovingly in His face. When He 
 passes in the thunder we like the awe of hearing 
 His voice, and of seeing the flashing of His eye.
 
 TO EVA LYNN. 17 
 
 When He comes over the sea, we like to shout 
 with the sea. And He is not angary, or He would 
 have told us so. He knows just what sort of 
 kiddies we are, and that we won't take as much 
 harm as the shopkeepers do, who are busy with 
 their hams, and jams, and cheeses — too busy look- 
 ing" for customers to see Him. God knows all 
 work and no play makes dullards, where it doesn't 
 make devils, and both are safe only in a pit. 
 
 The stars to-night were hurrying over the sky, 
 and the moon behind them seemed to be driven by 
 a strong and quiet wind, but the great star of all 
 did not move. The others were like us — troubled 
 and hastening, coming and going, burning out our 
 little lights. The other star was like God — stead- 
 fast, calm, bright, eternal.
 
 Good-niglit ! 
 
 Good-night ! the reaper of the sky 
 The swathes of darkness gathers in: 
 
 Good-night! His harvest home is nigh; 
 Good-night, good-night, loved Eva Lynn! 
 
 Good-night! good-night! the morning turns 
 And waves his hand way down the track; 
 
 Far ofT his smoky censer burns 
 And brightens as he hastens back. 
 
 He will come soon with rosy cheeks, 
 He will come soon with laughing eyes; 
 
 xA-U streams will answer when he speaks, 
 All oceans make him low replies. 
 
 And all the sunflowers in a row 
 
 Will turn their faces unto him, 
 And wear again the golden glow 
 
 They lost when all the world was dim. 
 
 Good-night ! he'll catch me wide-awake, 
 And scold me from his clouds above: 
 
 God keep you, child, for Jesus' sake, 
 Within His good-night house of love! 
 i8 
 
 (
 
 Eva Lynn. 
 
 There is a song within my heart 
 
 Set to a loving tune, 
 More Hke the spirit's counterpart 
 
 Than earth is like the moon. 
 
 My heart was large enough for me 
 Until that song stole in — 
 
 A white-winged dove of melody — 
 My sweetheart — Eva Lynn. 
 
 In starless hours above the dark, 
 
 On wings that never tire, 
 It rises higher than the lark 
 
 Where the wide blue takes fire. 
 
 And where it joins the limitless 
 
 Orion's sworded arm 
 Near wounding it, doth closely press 
 
 With overpowering charm. 
 
 The man within the moon in vain 
 
 Upon his violin 
 Would imitate the glad refrain — 
 
 Thy name, loved Eva Lynn.
 
 20 EVA LYNN. 
 
 And men on Mars who sing and row 
 
 Upon the broad canal, 
 Their brave, bronzed faces all aglow, 
 
 List to the madrigal. 
 
 It rings and sings on holy days 
 Like merry-making streams, 
 
 And angels hear on heav'nly ways 
 My angelus in dreams. 
 
 Far, far from earth a lullaby 
 Blown o'er the golden wall. 
 
 To happy children of the sky 
 It sounds, a silver call. 
 
 It wanders like a wind, and thrills 
 The meadows wide and broad. 
 
 That bloom with dewy daffodils 
 Before the House of God. 
 
 Whene'er I close my eyes to pray 
 "God keep me clean from sin," 
 
 A something leads my lips to say 
 **God keep you, Eva Lynn." 
 
 That song of you is old, as old 
 
 As is the tune of me, 
 And yet on lisping lips or cold 
 
 It makes pure melody.
 
 EVA LYNN. 21 
 
 That song in every land they sing- 
 
 And hi the Milky Way: 
 It is the stars the angels string, 
 
 To make my rosary. 
 
 Its two white hands to God held up, 
 
 Will He not take it thus, 
 As though it were a loving cup — 
 
 My love-born angelus?
 
 Roses. 
 
 And now the night is here, and the wind is ebbing 
 and flowing Hke a great tide round the shining shores 
 of the moon, and the moonlit shores of the earth. 
 
 I have been thinking of roses all day — that is, 
 when I have time for fragrant thoughts in moments 
 stolen from the sober, brown thoughts of work. 
 
 I wondered if at first, in the first Garden, there 
 was one lonely rose, as there was one lonely man, 
 and from wondering I came to believe that it was 
 so — and then I wanted to know why one rose was 
 red and the other rose was white, and from wonder- 
 ing I came to know, for if you strive long, working 
 out the sum of truth as you work out your sum at 
 school, the good spirit gives you the right answer. 
 He does not come and do the figures for j'ou, and 
 put down the answer with his pencil. He leaves 
 you to think you are doing all, while he is working 
 in your heart and head. He leaves you to do it, 
 so that you may have the joy of the finished work. 
 He does the same with the man who makes the 
 engine and the man who makes the ship — with the 
 artist and with the music man. Even the monkey 
 on the barrel-organ thinks sometimes that he com- 
 posed the tune, though it may have been Beethoven, 
 or Handel, or Mozart who did that, before the
 
 ROSES. 23 
 
 monkey left his forest tree or the winds among- 
 the talking- rocks of Barbary. 
 
 But to come back to the roses. 
 
 After my little sum of thought, which I took to 
 the good spirit, and which he, in his kind way, 
 marked ''correct" by the sign of a star, I had this 
 answer : In the first Garden, first of all there was 
 the man Rose, the red rose — beautiful, fragrant, 
 lonely, fed by the sun and the moon, and the stars 
 and the dew. It was doing Its little sum of thought. 
 
 The first day It thought — "The King Sun must 
 be lonely all alone up there in the wide and high 
 heaven!" But when night came with this same 
 moon I see, the man Rose knew that the King 
 Sun had a white, shining, beautiful, sky love, less 
 haughty but more fair than himself. 
 
 And when the first star came out in the first 
 night, the man Rose said — "That Is a lonely star 
 up in the evening!" but another star came out to 
 see. Then no star came out but another came to 
 see, until the heavens were full, and many, and 
 many were waiting their turn below the horizon 
 to play "I spy" in the sky. 
 
 One day the first man of men went by, and 
 leaning on him, her tawny hair upon her head like 
 a crown and about her breasts and body like a 
 burnished veil, went the woman of women. 
 
 She stayed a moment by the man Rose, and her 
 shining- eyes went to its soul as she said — " Beautiful 
 flower" (and her voice was like rain and sunshine,
 
 24 ROSES. 
 
 the gold of corn and the rhythm of the seas), 
 " beautiful flower, where in all the glad green 
 earth is yon?' love ? " 
 
 Then the little sum of the man Rose became a 
 great sum — greater still when the birds came and 
 the amber and purple grapes hung from their trel- 
 lises and from the sun-kissed walls of the garden. 
 
 One day the angel of the garden also went b)', 
 and the man Rose prayed the first prayer of the 
 garden. The prayer was white as the angel was 
 white — pure as the angel was pure. It was a living 
 prayer of dew and moonlight, edged by the glory 
 that throbs in the dawn. 
 
 Then the Red man Rose, happy in knowing that 
 the angel had seen the prayer, went to sleep and 
 dreamed the prayer all over again, and when it 
 awoke, the prayer was hlooming beside it. The 
 White Rose the Queen Rose, the prayer that was 
 made of the dew and the moonlight, and the pulsing 
 part of the dawn, had taken shape, and the Red 
 man Rose and the White Queen Rose rejoiced. 
 
 So your prayers will take shape, so your thoughts 
 will bloom, dear child-love, until you have a Paradise 
 all full of fadeless flowers. 
 
 Some day I may tell you of the Wind, and of 
 where it learned to speak, and what makes it glad 
 and what makes it sorrowful, and of the other sums 
 the great Spirit Master gives to me; but now, to 
 you be the goodness of night, and rosy thoughts to 
 greet the Rose of Dawn !
 
 The Master and the Flowers. 
 
 Within a wood of green and gold 
 With reeded rivers running- round, 
 
 A garden in the days of old 
 
 Was planted on a rood of ground. 
 
 An earthly chamber of delight 
 
 It seemed to pilgrims thither borne: 
 
 There often came Imperial Night, 
 And after Night the radiant Morn. 
 
 Along the paths they loved to walk 
 
 With plumed and haughty turbaned heads, 
 
 Like Rajahs listening- to the talk 
 Of rills on Indian watersheds. 
 
 At times, too, longing- to be kissed. 
 Or better still to kiss the flowers. 
 
 Came eagerly the Moon and Mist, 
 The rain and its attendant showers. 
 
 The wind and sun allegiance paid — 
 Wise Magi of the East and West — 
 
 And calmed white combers sank embayed 
 About that haunted Isle of Rest. 
 25
 
 26 THE MASTER AND THE FLOWERS. 
 
 Such peace was there one scarcely heard, 
 Or heard while hardly knowing' it, 
 
 In every slumb'rous bush the bird 
 Whose song kept overflowing- it. 
 
 Yet, sad to tell, there came, too, pain. 
 Into that glade of gold and green, 
 
 When one suggested that, to reign, 
 They should appoint an Empire-Queen. 
 
 One thought herself the flower most rare, 
 And claimed at once the crown as hers; 
 
 Another deemed herself most fair, 
 And she had also followers. 
 
 All day the talk on reigning ran. 
 By night the flowers dreamed of it. 
 
 Yet no one could devise a plan 
 
 To make the crown and claimants fit. 
 
 And now upon the river's face 
 
 Came little wrinkles care-bestowed: 
 
 And oft-times coming to the place 
 The Rajahs nearly lost the road. 
 
 And somehow, for the birds are wise. 
 Their early twittering sounded sad. 
 
 And somehow in the starry eyes 
 
 Of night, the gleam was not so glad.
 
 THE MASTER AND THE FLOWERS. 27 
 
 Then as the flowers talked and talked 
 Of which should be the Empire-Queen, 
 
 The Master in his garden walked 
 
 From out the wood of g"okl and g-reen. 
 
 He touched the lily and he smiled, 
 
 And said — "Ah, white one, what is this? 
 
 I pray you do not be beguiled 
 By Power, when Purity is bliss." 
 
 He touched the rose: "Ah, Rose," he said, 
 ^' Are you ambitious for the crown? 
 
 Think how a Queen may lose her head 
 For just a little brief renown. 
 
 "And you, O you sweet violet! 
 
 I must refuse a crown to you, 
 Tho' well I know the mignonette 
 
 Would be your maid of honour true. 
 
 " I would not think you half as sweet, 
 
 Or half as modest on a throne, 
 With satraps kneeling at your feet, 
 
 And fools to flatter you alone." 
 
 With kindly voice he spoke to all 
 The families of chrysanthemums; 
 
 He kissed them where they graced the hall — 
 The pink and red geraniums.
 
 28 THE MASTER AND THE FLOWERS. 
 
 And "Children mine," the Master said, 
 "Had I been here this had not been: 
 
 / have a croivn for every head, 
 
 And each of you shall be a Queen. 
 
 "By wafted wind, by carried clod, 
 
 Your seed shall leave its place of birth 
 
 To be the messengers of God 
 To every island of the earth. 
 
 "Each lily shall be queenly then, 
 And queenly shall all roses be; 
 
 Their Empires shall be hearts of men 
 And Angels, that they cannot see. 
 
 " Lo, into each is glory spilled. 
 And it shall be required of her, 
 
 Whene'er her mission, all fulfilled, 
 In room, on road, or sepulchre. 
 
 " She gives her soul, as Jesus gave 
 His life, not much esteeming it, 
 
 Unto a world He longed to save 
 For gladness of redeeming it."
 
 The Rose of Paradise. 
 
 By a long" and lonely river 
 
 In a valley tempest-torn, 
 Of the land of Never-never, 
 
 Was the rose of sorrow born. 
 
 And those lovers life has parted, 
 Or the closing of the tomb. 
 
 Journey thither broken-hearted, 
 Looking for the fateful bloom. 
 
 By a long and laughing river, 
 In a valley bright and broad, 
 
 Of forever and forever, 
 
 Blooms the radiant rose of God. 
 
 There the lovers that were parted. 
 Tell their love through angel eyes. 
 
 Round the rose-tree happy-hearted. 
 Round the rose of Paradise. 
 
 39
 
 Where the Fairies Play. 
 
 Over the tops of the purple hills, 
 
 Where the para shakes each frond, 
 Over the gullies and gliding' creeks. 
 O'er the highest spire of the far, dim peaks. 
 
 And past all the blue beyond — 
 Is a land of dreams, near a land of sleep. 
 Where fairies, we know, all their jewels keep. 
 
 Over the edge of the rounded blue, 
 
 Where the green waves swing and rock, 
 
 Over the curl of the breaking waves, 
 
 Over the beryl the red gold paves, 
 Is a gate with a magic lock, 
 
 And when still night comes you may turn the key. 
 
 And see what the fairies would have you see. 
 
 Some in their robes of purple pass, 
 
 Some in their robes of green, 
 And some, in orange and blue and gray. 
 Skip over the clouds on a pale moon-ray, 
 
 In the train of the fairy queen — 
 Skip in her train thro' the long cloud-bars, 
 In the wake of her chariot drawn by stars. 
 30
 
 WHERE THE FAIRIES PLAY. 31 
 
 If you leave your window unblind at night, 
 
 If you have no fear at all, 
 Be you little bo)'^, be you little maid, 
 When the moon-rays sleep in the bush-rimmed 
 glade, 
 
 Or full on your window fall, 
 You may climb a ray, you may take a peep 
 At the fairy world, if you do not sleep. 
 
 Over the rim of the great round moon, 
 If good thro' the day you've been. 
 
 In the farthest far of the blue, blue skies 
 
 You will see a hundred and hundred eyes. 
 That watch for the fairy queen ; 
 
 If you listen you'll know when her bright train 
 comes, 
 
 By the beat of a thousand fairy drums, 
 
 Over the tops of the snowy peaks, 
 
 Where the fretted frostwork lies, 
 Where the stooping edge of the starred blue rests 
 On the high and the hoary mountain crests, 
 
 That stick like teeth in the skies; 
 If you watch till dawning awakes the day. 
 You will see the land where the fairies play.
 
 You and ! and the Angels. 
 
 In some far clay when the world is old, 
 
 You and I and the angely 
 Will climb up a mountain made of g'old, 
 
 You and I and the angels. 
 
 We'll go on a long", long flight away, 
 You and I and the angels, 
 
 Over the rounded roof of Day, 
 
 You and I and the angels. 
 
 We'll fly past the rim of the great sky plains. 
 You and I and the angels. 
 
 And swing on the hairs of the comets' manes. 
 You and I and the angels. 
 
 Some day, some da}^ from the heights afar, 
 You and I and the angels, 
 
 Will join in a race with a falling star, 
 You and I and the angels. 
 
 We'll find where the earthquake battery bides, 
 You and I and the angels, 
 
 And watch while the round moon lures the tides, 
 You and I and the angels. 
 
 Some day, some day, when our flight is done, 
 Yours and mine and the angels'. 
 
 We'll stand in the doors of the Rising Sun, 
 You and I and the angels. 
 .32
 
 The River of Stars. 
 
 I TOOK a little ship last night, 
 She was moored in a lotus stream, 
 
 And I warped her round 
 
 And I went without sound 
 Past the land of the Lily-white Dream, 
 
 And out and over the heavenly seas 
 
 Between red Mars and the Hyades. 
 
 I sailed my little ship last night 
 On, on down the river of Stars, 
 
 And fast to each shroud 
 
 Was a silver cloud 
 For a sail on her rainbow spars. 
 
 I sailed till I saw in the farthest skies 
 
 The harbour lights of my little love's eyes. 
 
 I'll take Love's little ship each night 
 And sail as I sailed before. 
 
 By your eyes far light 
 
 To the land Delight 
 On the sea called Evermore. 
 
 And when life is o'er I'll return no more. 
 
 But stay in Love-land for Evermore. 
 33 3
 
 Song of Jesus. 
 
 Lowly to the manger 
 With His star above 
 
 Jesus came, a stranger 
 From the land of love. 
 
 He had no attendant 
 Host of Seraphim, 
 
 No soft folds resplendent 
 Swathed each rosy limb. 
 
 On the hills o'ertopping 
 
 Lovely Olivet, 
 In the vale down-dropping 
 
 To Genessaret. 
 
 By the brook of Kedar 
 When the day had gone, 
 
 'Neath a lordly cedar 
 Crowning Lebanon. 
 
 On the heights of Tabor 
 Under Hermon's snow. 
 
 Led by pray'r or labour 
 He went to and fro. 
 34
 
 SONG OF JESUS. 35 
 
 Envy, Hate, and Error 
 
 Fled the paths He trod, 
 Till the day of Terror 
 
 Hailed Him home to God. 
 
 Jesus reigns in heaven, 
 
 Crowned by God's right hand, 
 
 Near the sisters Seven 
 In the Starry Land. 
 
 There the light that lies on 
 Vale and mount and stream, 
 
 Floods the whole horizon 
 Like Aurora's dream. 
 
 There Life's tree is growing 
 
 On the dewy lawn, 
 There in beauty blowing 
 
 Blooms the Rose of Dawn. 
 
 There white winds of laughter 
 
 Blow and never cease, 
 While there follow after 
 
 Lilied streams of Peace. 
 
 Thro' the ages fleeting. 
 
 Like a moment's breath. 
 Downward leans He greeting 
 
 Souls that rise from death.
 
 36 SONG OF JESUS. 
 
 Weary, footsore, bleeding, 
 Come they unto Him, 
 
 Star-eyed angels leading. 
 And the Cherubim. 
 
 Bells of heaven breaking 
 
 Into chorus, ring. 
 Like old poets waking, 
 
 Born again, to sing. 
 
 Seraphs without number, 
 To the Souls' surprise. 
 
 Blow the haunting slumber 
 From their tired eyes. 
 
 He whose life was lowly 
 Knows all pain that smarts. 
 
 Pours sweet oil and holy 
 Into aching hearts. 
 
 For in Life's dead embers 
 His brave eyes can see 
 
 Tears the Cross remembers, 
 And Gethsemane. 
 
 And the God who sees us 
 
 And our little woes. 
 Leaves them all to Jesus, 
 
 Knowing Jesus knows.
 
 SONG OF JESUS. 37 
 
 For the price that bought Him, 
 
 And the scourge that fell, 
 With the thorn-crown taught Him 
 
 All the earth can tell. 
 
 Measure heaped on measure 
 
 Gives He love for scorn. 
 Pleasure plumed with pleasure 
 
 For ills nobly born. 
 
 Could stone Gods that blindly 
 
 Walk o}ie world from birth 
 Be one half as kindly 
 
 As our Prince of Earth. 
 
 Who in life's to-morrow, 
 
 Soon to be our own. 
 Deep will bury sorrow 
 
 Underneath His throne. 
 
 For with little clamour, 
 
 Simply robed and shod, 
 He with saw and hammer 
 
 Built a bridire to God.
 
 Twinkle, the Star. 
 
 Twinkle, the Star, was an orb of some importance. 
 It was his first appearance so far as the Earth 
 was concerned, and he wished to make a decided 
 impression. Though the hght of other stars was 
 rushing to Earth at the rate of many millions of 
 miles an hour, he was unaware of the fact, and 
 considered himself the only world of his order. 
 
 He was talking to himself when I first came to 
 know him, and he said, " I'll rise early and have 
 a look at the sun before he goes down." So he 
 climbed the green slope of the sea, and looked 
 with wonder on a school of whales that were 
 spouting great jets of water into the calm air. 
 
 "Hullo!" he shouted; "the watch dogs are out. 
 I'd better get along." He wanted to see the men 
 of the earth who lived on the plain behind the 
 high mountains, so he rose quickly over the low 
 foot hills, topped a range, and halted, wondering. 
 Range beyond range the mountains rose towards 
 the snowy Sierras in the west. The pause of 
 Twinkle, the Star, if it could be called a pause, 
 was only momentary. "This won't do," he said; 
 " I must be getting on, or it will be dark before 
 I arrive at the valley." 
 
 38
 
 TWINKLE, THE STAR. 39 
 
 On he went and up he went, and at last he 
 appeared over the valley just on the peak of a 
 snowy spire that seemed to pierce the floor of the 
 high heavens. 
 
 Below him spread the valley and the plain, with 
 oat-fields and wheat-fields, fields of green grass, 
 long rivers winding down from the hills, washing 
 the feet of quivering reeds, orchards heavy with 
 ripe fruit, hedges that blossomed with May. 
 
 New-shorn sheep dotted the pastures like great 
 flakes of new-fallen snow, between which the cattle 
 slowly moved, grave as deacons at a sacrament. 
 
 A thousand pillars of smoke rose towards him 
 through the quiet air. Men walked and children 
 ran, and the beautiful faces of women were lifted 
 to his, like the faces of nuns at adoration. 
 
 Twinkle, the Star, gasped. The beauty of it all 
 took his breath away. But he was not to be over- 
 awed. "Now," he said, *' I mean to make things 
 brighter. The sun has gone. I'll have the sky to 
 myself." 
 
 He proceeded to give eff"ect to his words, while 
 he watched attentively to see how the people below 
 were taking it. 
 
 A group of children, tired of play, gathered 
 together on the green, and one of them, looking 
 up, exclaimed, "What's that up there like a golden 
 bee?" 
 
 All the children looked, and one, more wise than
 
 40 TWINKLE, THE STAR. 
 
 the others, cried out, "Oh, a star, a star!" for 
 spears of light seemed to flash out from the far-off 
 world, and the sight of these formed in his mind 
 the word that had been uttered for the first time. 
 
 Twinkle was delighted at the applause his appear- 
 ance had called forth. " I think," he said, " I'll 
 shine some more." And as the darkness deepened 
 his light increased, but the moon rose, and some- 
 how Twinkle got into the path of the moon, and 
 that took the shine out of him a whole lot. 
 
 Then for a time every one forgot Twinkle, the 
 Star, in looking at the moon, but they came back 
 to him again, and he didn't sulk a bit. He was 
 shining away quite merrily. 
 
 Twinkle, the Star, heard a voice at his elbow 
 saying, "How do you do?" He turned, and 
 behold, another star, and another and another. He 
 felt inclined to say, " You're rather cheeky in 
 making your appearance here without my permis- 
 sion," but on second thoughts he remembered he 
 didn't own the sky. " I'm quite well, thank you." 
 
 So they fell to talking, and the second star said, 
 " If you don't mind, I'll journey with you. There 
 are lots of things to be seen, and two are company, 
 you know. You can explain to me what I don't 
 understand, and I will do the same for you." 
 
 By this time star after star had made its appear- 
 ance, until the heavens were a perfect jungle of 
 light. A swarm of golden bees had come from
 
 TWINKLE, THE STAR. 41 
 
 east and west, meeting" where the heavens are 
 highest. 
 
 "Who are these?" asked Twinkle, the Star, of 
 his companion. "Let me introduce you," said the 
 second star that came. "The bright red star you 
 see near the moon is called Antares. I know the 
 names of almost all the stars, as they were fellow- 
 travellers of mine on the way down. Antares is 
 in the Scorpion. You can see him flourishing his 
 curved sting, with the twin stars in it, as if he 
 were about to strike. Is he not beautiful, in all 
 his winding curves of light, with Antares, the 
 brightest gem, for a heart? 
 
 "Venus you see sinking in the west, and low 
 down, away in the north, there goes Mercury, 
 setting too. In the north, too, see, Regulus is 
 shining, and Mars, the red world, is just coming 
 up over the eastern mountains. 
 
 "Antares, Spica, Arcturus, are the three kings 
 of heaven, making three lines of light that form a 
 shape that even the men of Earth cannot miss 
 seeing." 
 
 So the second star told all the names of his fellow-, 
 travellers — of constellations, and planets, and star 
 clusters, of moons and suns that shone with emerald 
 and ruby lights, and Twinkle, the Star, who thought 
 to have Heaven to himself, began to feel somewhat 
 humble, as he lost himself in the awful magnificence 
 of the ever out-reaching sky.
 
 42 TWINKLE, THE STAR. 
 
 ** Excuse me," exclaimed a comet In his ear, ** but 
 you're standing on my tail." 
 
 Twinkle, the Star, shifted his position, and politely 
 replied, " I'm sorry, but there appears to be room 
 for us all." 
 
 The comet passed in haughty grandeur. 
 
 "Now," said the second star, as an unseen 
 orchestra began to play, "you'd better join the 
 dance with us all. It's about to begin." So away 
 they went and away they went, waltzing, whirling, 
 ever towards the west. 
 
 Twinkle, the Star, clasped his partner with long 
 arms of light, and it was merry going up and 
 down the sky. 
 
 In a pause of the dance Twinkle, the Star, and 
 his partner looked over the balcony of Heaven and 
 shone full on the Earth, the moon having gone 
 under a cloud to place some more pearl-powder 
 upon her face. 
 
 A man, looking out of a tower-like house through 
 a long telescope as big as a cannon, that revolved 
 as the stars went round, watched the doings up 
 above. He also took the heavens by sections, 
 photographed them, drew charts of them, and made 
 notes of all the movements of the dancers. 
 
 " That fellow must know something," said Twinkle, 
 the Star. They distinctly heard him say, " I must 
 keep my eye on you young people, and know exactly 
 where to find you."
 
 TWINKLE, THE STAR. 43 
 
 A man with a lean figure and long hair, 
 walking solemnly through the night and gazing 
 up, began to chant "Twinkle, twinkle, little 
 Star." 
 
 Twinkle, the Star, smiled. "Certainly," he said, 
 addressing no one in particular that could hear. 
 "By all means. Though not for poetical reasons, 
 of course; I'll twinkle just because it suits me to. 
 But how does he know my name ? " 
 
 A meteor went rushing and flaming by. 
 
 "Good gracious," said Twinkle's partner, "I 
 thought my head had gone. The authorities should 
 certainly regulate the speed of these bodies. Any- 
 thing over a million miles a second should be con- 
 sidered too fast. Only fancy what would happen 
 if that thing struck a skylark." 
 
 Twinkle, the Star, and his partner resumed their 
 waltzing towards the west. They appeared now 
 like a double star of fiery red and bright emerald, 
 beautiful indeed to the man with his eye still fastened 
 to the gun-like telescope that followed the moving 
 heavens. 
 
 Suddenly there was a crash, and Twinkle, the 
 Star, felt angry. They saw a figure hurrying 
 away. "Another of those worlds," he said, "that 
 don't carry a light. What sort of by-laws have 
 they here, and where are the police ? " 
 
 "The by-law is not enforced," said his partner 
 sweetly, "when the moon is shining."
 
 44 TWINKLE, THE STAR. 
 
 Then all around them came a raui of little stars 
 ~a rain of rosy light. 
 
 "I wonder what these fireworks mean?" said 
 Twinkle's partner. 
 
 " Fireworks, no doubt," he replied, " Possibly 
 the American fleet has been signalled." 
 
 They waltzed on and on, talking as they went of 
 the people of the world. 
 
 "What funny little people they are," said the 
 partner of Twinkle, the Star; "they actually think 
 there's nothing alive except in their little back- 
 garden of a place, and that we are simply here 
 for decorative purposes, and to save them lanterns 
 when they are going home of nights. They think 
 they run us on purely business lines. Sometimes I 
 get out of patience with them. In fact I get into 
 bad moods, and absolutely refuse to shine. I think 
 it ungrateful." 
 
 " I don't know if it is ingratitude so much as 
 thoughtlessness," said Twinkle, the Star. 
 
 "They are equally bad," was the reply. "To 
 be thoughtless is to be ungrateful, for gratitude 
 cannot forget." 
 
 "Perhaps," said Twinkle, the Star, and after a 
 long pause, again "perhaps." 
 
 The dawn began to flush the eastern hills, and 
 silence fell between the two whirling spheres going 
 down the steeps of heaven to meet the rose tints 
 that would soon appear. The last sound that they
 
 TWINKLE, THE STAR. 45 
 
 heard in the pensive darkness came from the room 
 of a little sick child, beside whom was a patient, 
 white-faced mother. 
 
 "Oh, mummy, I feel so much better. Do raise 
 the blind and let me see the stars." 
 
 And the mother raised the blind, and the child 
 looked with loving- eyes upon Twinkle, the Star, 
 and his partner, and said, "What a beautiful mind 
 God must have to think of making" the stars for us." 
 
 And Twinkle, the Star, hearing, said to his 
 partner ere they winked and blinked and went 
 out — "Perhaps, after all, we were made for them 
 
 and not to shine for ourselves. I rather think " 
 
 a long, long pause . . . his light leaped up for a 
 moment — " I rather think I love the little people of 
 the Earth because of that child." 
 
 And the partner of Twinkle, the Star, said, 
 " Because of that I will shine forever and forever — 
 all I hioiv.^^ 
 
 But the white-faced woman said, lifting her eyes 
 to heaven — 
 
 " And with joy the stars perform their shining, 
 And the sea its long, moon-silvered roll." 
 
 A sound aroused her from her dream-prayer. 
 
 She turned to that side from which the sound 
 came, and it seemed to her to become a light that 
 shone brighter than any star. 
 
 The Angfel of the Dawn stood beside her.
 
 The Wind, and when it Spoke. 
 
 Once, In the very Pit of Night, there begfan to live 
 a little Spirit of no name — a weak, unseeing, form- 
 less Thing, that yet was dear to the Spirit of the 
 Pit of Darkness, that lived childless in the skyey 
 hinterland, where, with it, the little Spirit was the 
 only living thing. 
 
 Once on a day it happened that the early men 
 were g^athered round a great field of standing' corn, 
 very white unto the harvest. They were standing- 
 idly, with their sickles gleaming in the occasional 
 glimpses of sunshine coming like hug^e fans of light 
 through and between the curtains of cloud that 
 were draping the heavens. They were standing 
 idly, thinking of the waiting, hungry millstones, 
 with the early women by them, and of the children 
 that ran clamouring to the early women for bread, 
 for they had grown tired of the fruits of the earth 
 that gave life less abundantly. 
 
 The reapers were idle, for there had lately been 
 
 great weeping from the stars because the moon for 
 
 a season had gone blind with a fearful shadow over 
 
 its light, and the sun had also for a little season 
 
 withdrawn himself into the secret and cloudy places 
 
 46
 
 THE WIND, AND WHEN IT SPOKE. 47 
 
 of the sky, mourning for the sorrow that had over- 
 taken his love. 
 
 Because of all these things, heavily upon the 
 bearded corn the sparkling dew was beaded, stir- 
 ring not to the beat of over-flying wings nor passing 
 into air at the prayers of the harvesters. 
 
 Then came the Angel of the Harvest downward 
 from his empty garner in the sky unto the idle 
 harvesters, who said — 
 
 "The sun is not as merry as of old; he is miserly 
 of his rays, and the chaff clings to the grain like 
 a wet garment. The millstones grind upon each 
 other, and the bellies of the children are murmur- 
 ing, sick for bread. Surely the Angel of the Harvest 
 did not foresee the falling of this pestilent dew." 
 
 Only for a moment the face of the Angel of the 
 Harvest seemed troubled. Then he turned him 
 about, and circling the Universe came to the Pit 
 of Darkness, where lay the little, troubled, sightless 
 Spirit that the Spirit of the Pit of Darkness had 
 prisoned because of love. 
 
 And the Angel of the Harvest took the small 
 Spirit into his hand, and blew upon it with his 
 breath, and it went forth glad, seeing, hastening, 
 until it came to the region of light, where the 
 stars cheered it going by, twinkling merrily upon 
 its flight. 
 
 But, coming to one great band of stars that 
 barred the sky, its course was stayed, and there
 
 48 THE WIND, AND WHEN IT SPOKE. 
 
 it began to moan with the first moan, and to cry 
 with the first cry, and to beat with its hands upon 
 the band of stars, until the Angel of the Harvest 
 came up with it, and stilled its crying. For the 
 Angel with his two strong hands pressed upon the 
 band of stars, and caused a great gateway to open 
 in the firmament, through which the Wind, no 
 longer a little Spirit, but grown strong, forced its 
 way to earth and came suddenly upon the harvest- 
 field. 
 
 Over and through the ripened corn it crooned 
 and crooned, beauty waking it to song. Over the 
 ripened corn it poised and hovered, and down upon 
 it it swooped like a bird, scattering the dew in a 
 diamond rain upon the ground, coming and going 
 among the ripened ears of corn and among the 
 yellow locks of the harvesters, who knew only that 
 an unseen Spirit was passing, giving out a living 
 and fragrant breath that made the field billow like 
 the sea. And because it was clear and billowy and 
 wavy among the seeding grass and the corn, and 
 made liquid noises between the leaves, and because 
 they had called the other Spirit — that made a more 
 open sound at its beginning of speech, and a harder 
 and more warring sound at the end. Water, they 
 called the thin, quick, unseen, hastening spirit 
 Wind, which word holds all the Spirit of the Thing 
 that the Angel of the Harvest brought into light 
 and glory from the Pit of Darkness.
 
 THE WIND, AND WHEN IT SPOKE. 49 
 
 Then because of the coming of the new Spirit, 
 the harvesters blessed the Harvest Wind and the 
 Angel of the Harvest. The sickles shore the corn, 
 now grown dry and hard and ready for the hungry, 
 waiting mills, and soon to be beautiful brown bread 
 for the early women and their children. And the 
 gateway in the firmament through which the Wind 
 came, by the power of the strong hands of the 
 Angel of the Harvest, remains open and starless 
 to this day, and through it you may see the mouth 
 of the Pit of Darkness in the broad path of the 
 Milky Way. 
 
 Now the Spirit of the Pit of Darkness, through 
 all the years that have gone, remained angry because 
 of the Spirit It had loved and lost. So between 
 these two there Is everlasting war. When the 
 Wind roars it is conqueror. When It wails the 
 darkness has It by the hair. When It moans and 
 sighs, it moans and sighs over the long, lost years 
 it spent in the prison-house. But when it goes 
 laughing among the corn it Is the First Wind, the 
 Best Wind, the breath that was breathed into it at 
 the beginning, when the Angel of the Harvest blew 
 it from his hand to make glad the hearts of the 
 waiting harvesters. 
 
 This Is all of the birth and speech of the brother 
 to the Water, that Is called the Wind.
 
 The Wind. 
 
 The first wind, the best wind 
 
 That ever yet was born, 
 Is the west wind, the kind wind. 
 
 The wind that shakes the corn. 
 
 JV/io S07V not shall mow not, 
 
 This is his ancient tale: 
 To know me but show me 
 
 The sickle and the flail. 
 
 I say not I may not 
 
 Have also work to do 
 In far-lands and star-lands 
 
 Where harvests ripen too. 
 
 The wind's track, the mind's track. 
 Are known alone to these. 
 
 As foam-ways on home-ways 
 To ships upon the seas. 
 
 No fears stay the year's way 
 Thro' thunder, fire, and foam. 
 
 The wild day, the mild day, 
 All bringf the harvest home.
 
 THE WIND. 51 
 
 For true men, but few men, 
 
 I never blew in vain: 
 My laughter flies after 
 
 Tlie chaff that leaves the grain. 
 
 For ever I sever 
 
 Too close-Vi^edded calms, 
 On highlands in islands 
 
 Of coral and of palms. 
 
 Be near me to cheer me 
 
 The high priest of the air. 
 Who makes sure and makes pure 
 
 All harvests everywhere. 
 
 For east winds and west winds, 
 And winds of north and south, 
 
 Are blown as and known as 
 
 The speech of God's own mouth. 
 
 He takes them and wakes them 
 
 With peace or with a sword. 
 And moves them and proves them 
 
 The servants of the Lord,
 
 Woo, the Love of Man. 
 
 It was after the river of darkness had taken the 
 fire from the risen sun, and the Hghts — white, yellow 
 and violet, and orange and blue — had each separated 
 themselves in coming through the mist to make a 
 glory for some particular flower, that she sat in 
 her honeysuckle arbour, weaving at her loom to 
 the singing of a noonday nightingale. 
 
 On the green-topped hills the white slieep were 
 grazing. Wool from these, that she had gathered 
 in the thorn brakes, lay like a heap of foam at her 
 feet, and ever to the growing of the web from the 
 woof, she too sang in happy chorus with the bird. 
 
 Wine-coloured blood from rare berries she took 
 when the weaving was done, and dyed the garment 
 she had made. Then, for the glory of her night- 
 shadowed hair, she made a band of living wool, 
 red as the plumes of a flamingo's wing. Robing, 
 she girded herself with a broad band of seaweed, 
 clasped with a coral clasp that had been washed 
 up by the river-tide. Flowers caught in her hair 
 trembled as with excess of happiness, the envy of 
 all those on shrub and sward. 
 
 Moving with the easy, effortless gait of a fawn, 
 she came to a crystal pool sleeping in a rock of 
 
 52
 
 woo, THE LOVE OF MAN. 53 
 
 alabaster, and beheld her image in the water, and 
 it was beautiful. 
 
 Gazing at it she became aware of another image 
 that drew near to her own, with eyes full of wonder 
 and amazement. Looking up and across to the 
 other brink of the pool, she beheld a strange figure 
 with flowing hair and beard, and clothed to the 
 waist in a leopard-skin robe held upon it by a 
 girdle and narrow shoulder-straps. The great hairy 
 arms were thus left free. From one hand, reaching 
 to the knee, trailed a long-shafted spear, glimmer- 
 ing where it was not sheathed in crusted blood ; 
 and in the other, by the loose shag skin of the 
 neck, hung a gray wolf with fallen jaw and droop- 
 ing head. 
 
 Surely, she thought, this is Early Man, whose 
 strange cries I have so often heard, wondering and 
 half-fearful, coming from the depths of the forest 
 — the Thing of Fear, from which the wild beasts 
 flee to their bone-littered dens in the caves of the 
 mountains. 
 
 A little while they gazed at each other, while all 
 the time the beating heart of the one seemed to 
 say "This is Man of my own kind," and the bound- 
 ing heart of the other, " Surely this is Woo, the 
 Love of Man." 
 
 He made a movement towards her and his lips 
 parted as if he would have spoken yet had been 
 stricken dumb, when she, overcome with sudden
 
 54 WOO, THE LOVE OF MAN. 
 
 fear at the tall and hairy form, the dead wolf and 
 the bloody spear, hurried away like a driven wind. 
 
 To himself the man simply said "This is no beast, 
 that I should give chase." Then he looked into the 
 crystal pool with devouring eyes to see if the image 
 would come again. He knew not if she were a 
 thing of Earth or Water, for the image had been 
 as clear as the beautiful form and face, and at the 
 one moment It and She had fled. Then he under- 
 stood, for in the water was the man he was not, 
 and on the bank stood the mail he 7vas. 
 
 While the Beautiful One sat and wove and 
 wondered, at many an eventime from a rock across 
 the water, that stood like a tower above an ocean 
 of branches, came the plaintive notes of a pipe. 
 Over there it seemed a star had fallen to earth, 
 for a light twinkled all night long. She thought 
 that the music lit the star each evening and made 
 it to shine. 
 
 Through the day little wisps of vapour rose from 
 the trees, clinging about their topmost branches, 
 and Woo, the Love of Man, wondered what manner 
 of Being or of Spirit had in its home a star and a 
 cloud, and a voice unlike the voice of any other 
 living thing. 
 
 When the first rain came she wondered more, 
 and the forest grew to be a lonely place. 
 
 By the track she took to the waterside she found 
 at times beautiful furs of sable, and of white, black
 
 woo, THE LOVE OF MAN. 55 
 
 and brown and tawny skins, and, as she was not 
 a killer of beasts, she took these and wore them 
 when the wind came through the bower to make 
 her tremble like the leaves. Then a sickness seemed 
 to take the trees, and from many of them the leaves 
 fell. 
 
 The nig-htingale had gone, and taken the flowers 
 with him. The sheep were huddled under the shelter 
 of the little hills, that had lost their first sweet 
 greenness. The river ran chilly and it moaned, 
 having too large a burden of waters to bear. Then 
 from the wings of the sky, as the leaves had fallen 
 from the trees, white feathers began to fall, until 
 all the world was white as the wool from which she 
 had woven her splendid robe. 
 
 A bear came and looked at her with wicked little 
 eyes. A big wolf went slinking by. 
 
 Woo, the Love of Man, also fell sick, like the 
 leaves and the trees, and lay looking with dreamy, 
 desolate eyes up into the bare and songless branches. 
 Yet nightly the music lit the star, and came to her 
 with haunting sounds, seeming to say — 
 
 " Woo, the Love of Man, 
 
 Come to the cloud and fire, 
 All the streams that ran 
 
 Seem in the frost to tire. 
 The river makes no sound, 
 The leaves lie dead on the ground: 
 The earth must soon expire,
 
 56 WOO, THE LOVE OF MAN. 
 
 Come to the cloud and fire 
 
 That the wind blows like a fan. 
 
 All that your wants require 
 
 Is here with the cloud and fire, 
 
 You are my heart's desire — 
 Woo, the Love of Man." 
 
 She slept, and in her waking- dream she heard 
 the sound of a passing- footstep. By her couch 
 there was a steaming bowl of milk. She thought 
 of the cloud upon the rock, and, hesitating at first, 
 she sipped, and then drank with joy, finding the 
 warm life coming back to every vein, and beating 
 there in a gladsome way. 
 
 Still she grew weaker and weaker, sleeping heavily 
 and dreaming of the lost time of roses and of the 
 nightingale, and in the last dream she felt herself 
 passing again through the forest. She was being 
 borne by some gentle but unknown power, so she 
 did not trouble any. She did not call out or cry; 
 it seemed that her mother, the Earth, had been un- 
 kind, and that the new and loving power was taking 
 her away from it to a twinkling star. 
 
 When she awoke from a long, long sleep she was 
 looking into the eyes of Man. She had no fear 
 now. The warm rugs heaped upon her and about 
 were like things of slumber that glowed upon her, 
 and gave peace to the breath she breathed. 
 
 The walls of the cavern were hung too with 
 slumber skins — with spears and bows and arrows,
 
 woo, THE LOVE OF MAN. 57 
 
 with tusks of boars and claws of bears and lions, 
 and with the brave antlered heads of many stags. 
 She was not at all afraid. 
 
 He knelt to her, and he took her hand and he 
 kissed it. He touched her hair, her brow, her lips, 
 lovingly with his lips. 
 
 He gave her meat to cat, whispering", when she 
 questioned him — " I am Man — the Mateless Man," 
 and she answering, with the lost nightingale in her 
 voice — " I am Woo, the Love of Man."
 
 Love. 
 
 In a desert place 
 
 Love may fainting He, 
 But upon her face 
 
 Dreams that cannot die 
 Keep her eyes alight 
 Thro' the darkest night. 
 
 I have seen a trace 
 Of her footfalls when 
 
 In a silent place 
 Far away from men 
 
 I have gone to speak 
 
 With a lonely creek. 
 
 Where the brown bee sips 
 From the mignonette, 
 
 I have seen her lips 
 Shape a violet, 
 
 And the joyous Earth 
 
 Pulsing with her mirth. 
 
 I have felt her breath 
 Stirring in my hair, 
 5S
 
 LOVE. 59 
 
 When I lay with Death 
 
 Laughing in his lair — 
 (For I could not fear, 
 Knowing love so near). 
 
 I can hear a sound, 
 
 And I do rejoice, 
 From the underground 
 
 Of her quiet voice, 
 And it seems to say, 
 " Love ivill call to-day .'' 
 
 Love has called to say, 
 " I shall never tire, 
 
 Telling all the day 
 
 Love is Cloud and fire, 
 
 Married mignonette 
 
 And the Violet." 
 
 For each faded flower 
 Wake one with a kiss: 
 
 For each lonely hour 
 Make a joy in this: 
 
 Make the rose to be — 
 
 Love's Eternity.
 
 Love that was 111. 
 
 My love lay ill, and in each failing sense 
 
 Life's flame burned lower as the days burned by 
 Until in my despair I sought the sky 
 
 And took the sun into my confidence: 
 
 I had no store of silver or of pence 
 
 To place before him his good gifts to buy, 
 Only the tears that fall when sad hearts cry 
 
 Without a sound thro' silences intense. 
 
 Yet with compassion thro' the glowing day 
 He listening leaned, and pitying gave to me 
 
 Flowers for her couch made cool with dew that slips, 
 
 Filtered thro' star-sands of the Milky Way, 
 Fruits from the branches of the Healing Tree, 
 
 And wine that turned to laughter on her lips. 
 
 60
 
 The Little Folks who Came. 
 
 It was after the first war that the man with the long 
 body and the short arms and legs looked down from 
 his hill-top with red eyes into the valley that was full 
 of gorged and feeding vultures. 
 
 The great fire had swept through the bush, 
 making of it a blackened ruin, on which the rains 
 fell dismally, and over which the winds moaned, 
 whirling the ashes where the sun had dried them. 
 
 All the game had fled before the flaming enemy to 
 other shelters, where, timid and fearful, they were in 
 hiding after the dreadful happenings. 
 
 Life was a hard time for the man, and the wife, 
 and the little child in the fern-hid cave. 
 
 Day by day the hunter went forth after the fright- 
 ened deer, and almost as often he returned hungry 
 and sick at heart to his gloomy home. 
 
 By day the woman, too, went forth on the food- 
 search. Stealthily she went along the deep gullies, 
 fishing in their streams with hooks made of hard 
 bone, baited with bright paua shells, and looking 
 also to the traps that she had set for eels, which 
 seldom contained anything, for the waters, like the 
 
 land, were strangely empty. 
 
 6i
 
 ^2 THE LITTLE FOLKS WHO CAME. 
 
 With what burning eyes she would watch her line 
 cast into the mystery of a deep pool for any little 
 movement, hoping and fearing — to heart sickness ! 
 
 As the days went by she could not well attend to 
 the half-hopeless fishing, for a fever came to the 
 little girl-child, and the w^oman stayed to nurse her 
 as much as she might — to put out the fever-fire that 
 burned on the sweet lips with draughts of cold water 
 from a gourd when the little moaning cry smote on 
 her heart. 
 
 The enemy still prowled near the rocky hill, but 
 the only path they knew to it was fearfully steep, 
 and guarded by huge stones that the man had 
 gathered and poised in readiness to roll down upon 
 any who might be bold enough to attempt that way. 
 Though the prowlers had had their lesson, by turns 
 the man and woman guarded it night and day, so 
 that by their hunting and their fishing and their 
 watching the child was left much alone. The back 
 of the hill was formed by a deep gorge, down the 
 faces of which streamed fan-like shapes of water 
 over the smooth rock, yet from ledge to ledge the 
 man had fastened long creepers taken from the trees 
 to make a perilous ladder, and it was down this that 
 one went while the other v^atched by the rocking- 
 stones. Most often the man went, and always he 
 turned with fierce questionings — "Did she eat?" 
 "Did she drink?" "Did she call?" " Did she open 
 her eyes?" And as the answer was, he went softly
 
 THE LITTLE FOLKS WHO CAME. 63 
 
 to and fro, stood looking' and looking as still as a 
 stone, or crouched in the dark of the cavern, his 
 head bowed to his knees or lower. Through one 
 day of pain they watched her together, forgetting 
 the hunting and the enemy. 
 
 In the evening she grew still and cold, and they 
 said, " This is Death," but it was not death — only a 
 deep, deep sleep. After the deep, deep sleep, the 
 child opened her eyes ; they were deep and dark, yet 
 bright, and full of strange knowledge, as though she 
 had been to a far country, and had seen things the 
 man and the woman had never seen. 
 
 Her hands were white and thin and shaky, and 
 full of a network of little blue streams, in which the 
 pulses just feebly throbbed along. 
 
 The whole body was wasted by fever as if by 
 famine. 
 
 One day she laughed, and the man was full of a 
 trembling happiness. He, too, was thin. From 
 hunger and watching he had become as gaunt as a 
 half-blinded wolf that cannot see to kill. 
 
 When the child called for food, they went together 
 to far places in the bush to look for late fruits, or to 
 try to snare a bird, that they might make broth from 
 it for her, or tempt her appetite with a little of the 
 breast-meat to make her strong again. 
 
 The child was left alone. 
 
 There were no playmates for her, yet she did not 
 moan or cry. From a long day's sleep she would
 
 64 THE LITTLE FOLKS WHO CAME. 
 
 wake to see the shadows about the cave-mouth 
 deepening" into the dark, and the glow-worms 
 shining out of it hke stars from a midnight sky. 
 
 One day, feeling" stronger than she had felt all 
 through her sickness, she sighed and longed for a 
 playfellow; and looking out of the cave-mouth, she 
 saw the lights of a rainbow, and amid the light little 
 folks with smiling faces that came nearer and nearer, 
 stretching out their hands to her. 
 
 They made curls in her hair. They touched her 
 on the hot eyelids and made them cool. They kissed 
 her on the lips, and their kisses were better than 
 cooling draughts from any gourd, so she loved them 
 and she said, "Who are you?" 
 
 And they answered, "We are the Little Folks — 
 the fairy folks — the folks ivho come.'" 
 
 And she answered again, "Where do you come 
 from?" 
 
 And they answered again, " The Rainbow-land." 
 
 And she asked yet again, "Who gave you 
 wings?" 
 
 And they answered again, "They were given to 
 us by Happy Thought." 
 
 Still she questioned them, and they answered — 
 
 " Who gave you Life ?" 
 
 "The sun and the moon and the stars and the 
 maker of the rain." 
 
 " Who sent you here ?" 
 
 " We just came."
 
 THE LITTLE FOLKS WHO CAME. 65 
 
 " And why did you come ?" 
 
 "To be your playfellows, and to ask you to be 
 our playfellow." 
 
 *' Will you stay with me ?" 
 
 "We will stay while you are alone. We always 
 stay with the lonely." 
 
 And so they talked and talked, busying- with her 
 hair, her little thin hands, and her long-, dark 
 eyelashes. 
 
 Then they sang- a lullaby, and when the little 
 child-love of the brave man and the brave woman 
 awoke she was laughing- at some funny speech a 
 fairy had made, and the brave man and the brave 
 woman were by her side with milk and honey. 
 
 She drank eagerly, and she took the sweets the 
 wild bees had gathered for her, and the gaunt man 
 took her in his arms and kissed her again and again, 
 and the gaunt woman took her from the gaunt man 
 and held her to her heart, while the tears fell silently 
 as she crooned and crooned in simple sounds like 
 those the clear running waters make. 
 
 Day by day when the man and the woman were 
 away the little folks came, and child-love talked and 
 laughed and grew strong. 
 
 They made the tired head well ; they fanned the 
 hot cheeks with their little wings ; they gave her 
 cooling kisses for her lips; they made the sea of her 
 hair billow in happy waves of gold ; and they said — 
 
 " You are so good, you are so patient, you are so 
 
 5
 
 66 THE LITTLE FOLKS WHO CAME. 
 
 brave, we must love you always ; and when you are 
 lonely, call to us, and we will come. A long, long 
 way off we can hear a heart calling, and we always 
 answer when it is kind and brave. Good-bye now, 
 and good-bye. You are well and strong; you can 
 walk; you can run. When others are sick, be kind 
 and loving to them, and tell them when they are 
 fretful to forget to fret, and to be patient and kind 
 and loving too, and we will be their friends also, 
 and they will be the friends of the Little Folks who 
 Came."
 
 The Rainbow Bridge. 
 
 Two little folk — they were fairy folk — 
 
 On two islands of the sea, 
 Took on themselves love's gfood sweet yoke, 
 
 Yet they could not meet, you see, 
 For tho' it was only a fairy sea, 
 
 It was deep and wide as It well could be. 
 
 For two long- years, two years and a day. 
 They loved and they longed to meet, 
 
 And each one blew the wet fairy spray 
 To the other one's fairy feet, 
 
 And each one threw, from its fairy shore. 
 Six kisses a day, and then six more. 
 
 They lay all bare in the summer air. 
 
 All bare to the naked sky. 
 And the wee little stars shone bright and fair, 
 
 And they looked at them wheeling by, 
 Till the sunrays came the wide sea o'er, 
 
 And fairy winds made the white waves roar. 
 67
 
 68 THE RAINBOW BRIDGE. 
 
 Then they thought it sad to be held apart 
 
 (These fairies they could not fly, 
 And often it made them sad at heart, 
 
 To be wingless, as you and I); 
 So they puzzled their brains o'er a meeting plan, 
 
 This fairy maid and this fairy man. 
 
 They grew so sad that they could not eat, 
 
 They both waxed thin and wan. 
 And they said, *' If we do not shortly meet. 
 
 We both of us will be gone: 
 We will pass away like the fairy mist, 
 
 Before each one has the other kissed." . 
 
 One day the sea sang a sad, sad hymn, 
 
 The winds blew high and loud. 
 And in from the ocean's rounded rim 
 
 There came down a fairy cloud, 
 That held, in its fleecy vapour train. 
 
 The crystal drops of the fairy rain. 
 
 They watched, those two, with their wide round 
 eyes. 
 
 Till the rain cloud broke o'erhead. 
 And black night lay on the fairy skies, 
 
 Like a sea of ink outspread; 
 And they wept, those two little folk, for fear, 
 
 So far apart, yet so very near.
 
 THE RAINBOW BRIDGE. 69 
 
 Then the sun came out, and a rainbow cast 
 
 On the fairy rain, as it fell. 
 And they said, "We will meet each other at last," 
 
 Aye, this is the tale I tell — 
 That one climbed up and slid down the bow, 
 
 And they kissed, as the fairies with wings all 
 know. 
 
 Now whenever you see the rainbow-span 
 
 Circle your own weet sky, 
 Just think of the fairy maid and man — 
 
 The fairies that could not fly — 
 And, if to the rainbow foot you get, 
 
 You will see the sea where their isles are yet.
 
 Little Bo- Peep. 
 
 Little Bo-Peep 
 In her baby sleep 
 
 Lies like a fairy flower, 
 And she breathes as low 
 As the dream-winds blow 
 
 Thro' the leaves of a Rainbow-bower. 
 
 Dawn to her cheek 
 Has come to seek 
 
 Roses to deck the Morn; 
 And the West knows where, 
 In the waves of her hair, 
 
 Last year's young gold was born. 
 
 The birds will bring 
 
 At Dawn, when they sing, 
 
 A lute-like voice to her; 
 Her maids will be 
 The Earth and the Sea, 
 
 And a Star her minister. 
 
 What her life will be 
 In the night I see 
 
 When I read her horoscope ; 
 70
 
 LITTLE BO-PEEP. 71 
 
 When I see her stand 
 Each hand hi a hand 
 
 Of the Angels — Faith and Hope. 
 
 Her pathway runs 
 'Neath the rose-red suns 
 
 That flower in the farthest skies ; 
 And the stars are hers 
 For her messengers 
 
 On her way to Paradise. 
 
 She will not tire 
 Where worlds on fire 
 
 Are sands of the Milky Way, 
 Or the angel Love 
 Meets her above 
 
 By the milestone marked ''half-way." 
 
 For her are the flowers 
 And the golden hours 
 
 That wing round them like bees, 
 The deep, deep hush 
 Ere the heavenly thrush 
 
 Calls loud through the trembling trees. 
 
 Ah, little Bo-Peep! 
 It is good to sleep 
 
 In that fair, calm angel way. 
 But I touch you like this 
 With the ghost of a kiss, 
 
 For I want you — to wake — and play.
 
 The Little Builders. 
 
 Ran, the Son of Man, lay dying. He had been fleet 
 as the winds are fleet — the kilHng hunter — the lonely 
 man. Of all that he had known of his own race 
 not one came near. With these he had quarrelled 
 and fought, and there was much blood between 
 them. Under a bark shelter raised against the wind 
 he lay, the dense vine-roped, leaf-blinded, solitary 
 bush before him. 
 
 Untended by any human hand he lay, too proud 
 and too sullen to make any moan for all the pain 
 that racked him. But the monkeys, who had known 
 him so long in his early goings and late comings, 
 and who had come to look upon the mute, hairy 
 man as a king monkey, brought him, in broken 
 cocoanuts, cooling draughts of milk from the trees, 
 to put out the fever fire that burned within him. 
 
 Milk they brought him, and purple and amber 
 grapes from the wild vines ; figs from their trees, 
 oranges too, and melons from the lower-lying flats 
 by the talking rivers. 
 
 The lion he had hunted came and gazed at him 
 and the great necklet of yellow claws he wore, with 
 
 yellow eyes from which had gone both fear and 
 
 72
 
 THE LITTLE BUILDERS. 73 
 
 anger. Perhaps for that stricken and leonine hunter 
 there was even in his heart some pity. They had 
 been enemies, each by his own vow. There was 
 truce between them at last by no pleading- from the 
 powerless one, but by the generous heart of the 
 strong. 
 
 After the gazing lion came the timid things — deer 
 and hares, the little squirrels and the wondering 
 rabbits; after these came the little owls with their 
 sorrowful voices, and the moon. For a time before 
 the dawn there was nothing but silence, until there 
 came the Little Builders, guiding the Angels of the 
 Passing, with the chief of them, the Angel with the 
 Shining Eyes. By his leafy couch came all these. 
 With a hoarse voice Ran, the Son of Man, bade 
 them begone, raising himself upon a wasted arm, 
 but they remained. 
 
 To the Little Builders the Angels with the Shining 
 Eyes said— "What is it?" 
 
 And the Little Builders answered — 
 
 "This is the work that we have done. From all 
 the words that came from the thoughts that were 
 the thoughts of Him, we have builded Ran, the 
 Son of Man. Word by word, each as small as the 
 motes in a beam of light, we took from his lips the 
 bad and the good. One upon the other they were 
 placed from sun to sun, and from moon to moon, 
 and from the failing of the leaf to the falling of 
 the leaf again. Building by the command of the
 
 74 THE LITTLE BUILDERS. 
 
 Master, we have g-'iven shape to a Soul that the 
 Angel of the Shuiing Eyes may see." 
 
 The eyes of Ran, the Son of Man, unclosed again 
 and fixed themselves upon the face of the Angel 
 of the Shinhig Eyes, and "What do you here?" 
 said he. 
 
 And the Angel of the Shining Eyes answered — 
 
 " I have come with the golden and true balance, 
 to weigh all the words of Ran, the Son of Man, so 
 that the Master may know whether good in the 
 scale will weigh down evil, or whether evil will out- 
 weigh the good." 
 
 Again Ran, the Son of Man, cried " Begone!" 
 
 But the Little Builders took, one by one, from 
 the crown even unto the foundation of Ran, the Son 
 of Man, the thoughts, small as the motes in a beam 
 of light, that they had builded in the making of that 
 gaunt soul. And as they passed from the hands of 
 the Little Builders to the scales, so passed, slowly 
 passed, the life of Ran, the Son of Man. 
 
 Yet all the space in the scale of good was empty, 
 and the Angel of the Shining eyes, foreseeing the 
 sorrow of the Master, became himself sad with tears, 
 taking and holding it in his hand, hoping even then. 
 
 Ran, the Son of Man, began to murmur as if in 
 a dream, and the Angel, listening, heard him and 
 understood his speech. 
 
 ** I have been wild and lawless," said he, "fear- 
 ing nothing and hating much, asking nothing and
 
 THE LITTLE BUILDERS. 75 
 
 giving less. The light upon the mountains and the 
 shadows in the forest, the dawn, the twilight, the 
 rivers and the stars, constant, yet changing, and 
 beautiful after the deep breathings of the chase, 
 were my ministers, because of one I loved and who 
 loved mc long ago, and who sorrowed, and who 
 died doubting me, because of the craft of an 
 enemy." 
 
 A little .iilence came and stood between Ran, the 
 Son of Man, and the Angel with the Shining Eyes. 
 The Little Builders rested, thinking their labour 
 ended. The Angel with the Shining Eyes leaned 
 low and whispered in his ear. 
 
 The Little Builders worked again. 
 
 *' I loved her, and because I could not give my 
 life to her — the woman with the white breasts and 
 brow, and the soft and clinging arms — I gave it to 
 the silence, leaving, after vengeance, the race that 
 wronged me. Yet " 
 
 The Little Builders stayed their hands. 
 
 ** Ran, the Son of Man, hunted not what he might 
 slay, but for that which cannot be slain — Love." 
 
 The Little Builders ceased from their work. The 
 Angel with the Shining Eyes stood erect, holding 
 the balance with the beam of gold, and his face 
 now shone with the shining of his eyes.
 
 The Little Builders. 
 
 As our God holds in His hands 
 All the seas and all their sands, 
 
 Numbering every billow in its foam — ■ 
 So He counts each earthly deed 
 For the hungry hour of need, 
 
 Storing them in garners near His home. 
 
 There the Builders one toy one 
 Take the deeds that we have done, 
 
 One by one with little hands they mould them, 
 Thro' the days of war and peace. 
 Into cells or palaces, 
 
 So that God our Father may behold them. 
 
 Only bad deeds fail and pine 
 In that atmosphere divine, 
 
 For they cannot bear day's holy noon: 
 Neither shall the sun and rain 
 Wake them into life again — 
 
 Neither shall the glory of the moon. 
 
 As the earth's foundation stands 
 
 In the hollows of God's hands. 
 
 As its constant song to heaven is rhyming. 
 
 Bravely as the earth doth roll 
 
 We should go unto our goal, 
 
 With the stars like bells above us chiming. 
 76
 
 Asaman, the Beginner of Dreams. 
 
 The first days were days of plenty, for the world 
 was joyous under the sun, laughing" to the young- 
 Spring in flowers and fruits and odours rich and 
 numberless. The lion went in fear of man, for every 
 man was strong. The Earth gave forth nothing that 
 was weak or sickly, for as yet man had done little 
 wrong to himself or to his neighbour, and less unto 
 nature. Toil there was none. Men came from the 
 chase nightly to the feast and the sleep of the tired 
 and the glutted. But to Asaman there was some- 
 thing lacking in life. Coal-black were his eyes and 
 his hair. His limbs were bronze, with sinew and 
 bone and blood making it alive. He stood straight 
 and tall as a spear planted in the earth. He was 
 not hairy of limb and body like others of his people, 
 and he walked much by himself, and killed the 
 wolves with his hands. Before the steady flames 
 that burned in his eyes the panther faded into the 
 leaves of the forest, and the leopard lay at full 
 length, yet uneasily, on his branch and forgot to 
 spring. Wondering and wandering, Asaman went 
 through the woods, hearing sounds that others 
 heard not, seeing things that looked with startled 
 eyes from the air, and fled. He sought the river- 
 
 77
 
 78 ASAMAN, THE BEGINNKR OF DREAMS. 
 
 heads in the valley, and he heard the bell-like voices 
 of the waters as they talked. The ripple spreading 
 from the rising of a trout in the glassy pool was a 
 glory to him, and the broken moonlight falling about 
 the forest paths made, as it seemed to him, a bird to 
 wake and sing in his heart. The shining of the dew 
 upon the grass-blades and upon the round, beautiful 
 v/ebs the spiders spun, the rose opening and redden- 
 ing, the gladioli burning about the bush-edges — 
 these, too, gave him joy, and with joy came longing 
 — a longing to know. 
 
 Rising from his couch in the white night while the 
 others slept and snored with opened mouths, he 
 would step across their forms and walk, following 
 the Thing of his Wonder, a face that grew in beauty 
 in his mind in the darkness and in the light. 
 
 The men looked upon him with a half-careless 
 interest, but the eyes of the women brightened at his 
 approach, though he saw not that many of them 
 decked themselves, that they might draw to them 
 the deep, dark, far-away-looking eyes of Asaman. 
 
 Now, vipon a night when silence brooded heavily 
 over the forest, Asaman lay and slept with his face 
 to the stars under the warm sky ; and as the dew 
 fell upon his coal-black hair and glistened in the 
 starlight like diamonds upon the lashes of his heavy- 
 lidded eyes, a sound like the patter of many feet 
 came through the stillness, and the deep-throated 
 cries of many wolves rang out from their red throats.
 
 ASAMAN, THE BEGINNER OF DREAMS. 79 
 
 Hitherto the wolves had hunted singly; but fearful 
 of Asaman, who had killed so many with his hands, 
 they had called a council and chosen a great, gaunt, 
 and savage wolf as leader. Leading them now, he 
 came, determined as they to slay the slayer of their 
 dead brothers. 
 
 Against a tree stood Asaman — against a tree that 
 grew before a smooth-faced wall of rock. He knew 
 not what fear was, for fear had not yet come to him. 
 As wolf after wolf sprang he caught each open- 
 mouthed in the air, tore their jaws apart, and flung 
 them to the pack, that turned upon them and pulled 
 them to pieces. 
 
 Sweating, straining, struggling, and wet with 
 blood (drenched in dew), Asaman awoke. He 
 looked around for the wolves that he had killed; 
 they had vanished. He looked for their blood upon 
 his hands and his body; he found only the dew. He 
 listened for the sound of running footfalls ; there was 
 only silence. He had not yet found the thing of his 
 wonder; but yet, but yet, he saw a face that came 
 between him and the killing. 
 
 Again he slept — and " I will walk to the edge of 
 the earth," he said. On the long, long march he 
 went, through the mists of night; and when morning 
 came he was, he thought, at that place where the 
 earth meets the sky, but with the coming of the sun 
 he saw only a great white river filling all the valley, 
 a valley of mist, from which the hill-tops stood up
 
 So ASAMAN, THE BEGINNER OF DREAMS. 
 
 like lonely islands against the waves of mist. The 
 meeting-place of the earth and sky had fled before 
 him to another far stronghold. Through gaps in 
 the nearer hills he saw grey banks of cloud, and 
 above them a blue plain that swept upward and 
 away into something unseen beyond. The blue 
 made his wonder and his longing greater. Again 
 the eyes of Asaman opened, but all about him he 
 saw only the sleepers, snoring with open mouths. 
 Yet all through his dream went the face beckoning 
 him with a look. 
 
 " I will seek for that which I have seen," said 
 Asaman again. 
 
 He rose and bathed himself In the stream that 
 flowed past the place of his people. He took of food 
 sparingly; and breaking into a run, with his eye 
 upon the meeting-place of the earth and sky, he 
 commenced his long and lonely journey, for the path 
 to the Thing of Wonder is through the gates of Far 
 Away. On the far blue hills the face went before 
 him — a beautiful face that, going away and away, 
 vanished on the horizon as he ran; but Asaman 
 said — 
 
 "This is the Thing of Wonder, and this is the 
 chase for Man." 
 
 Sleeping, he saw the face; and waking, it still 
 went before him, over the mountains and into the 
 Happy Valley. 
 
 The hands of the killer of wolves were now clean
 
 ASAMAN, THE BEGINNER OF DREAMS. 8i 
 
 from blood. The trees held out their arms to him 
 loaded with golden fruit, and where some sudden 
 bolt of lig-htning had struck down a meanly fruited 
 limb in the white wood the bees had hived, and there 
 was amber honey in combs of snow. From large- 
 leaved palms he took nuts that gave him milk, and 
 from the earth roots that he cooked with fire. After 
 many weary days of travel, Asaman lay down, and 
 he slept, and in his sleep came again the face. He 
 stretched out his arms. He awoke and said, "It is 
 morning," but the light that filled his eye was the 
 light of the face. The arms that were stretched out 
 to him were not the beams of the sun or the arms of 
 the fruited trees. The form that rose before him 
 did not flee away like the horizon. The voice that 
 he heard was a voice that he had heard in sleep, 
 faintly as sleepers hear; but the whole body of light 
 that rose before him like the morning was the Thing 
 of Wonder, that, like the horizon, is of the earth and 
 sky — and the name of which is love. So, following 
 his dream, Asaman came from the place of the 
 glutted sleepers to love that lives at the end of 
 weary travel, over the far blue hills, in the Happy, 
 Happy Valley.
 
 The Dreamer. 
 
 Who seeks the shore where dreams outpour 
 
 Their floods in Slumber Seas 
 Lives all night long within a song 
 
 Of murmuring mysteries. 
 
 Where stars are lit above the pit 
 
 That holds the hollow dark, 
 Into their dawn he shall sail on 
 
 In an enchanted barque. 
 
 He shall not fear tho' in his ear 
 
 The thrusting cranks of Time, 
 Thro' blaze and gloom, with crash and boom, 
 
 Ring in tremendous rhyme. 
 
 Beyond the cloud that doth enshroud 
 
 Saturn with beauteous bands, 
 Where at the knees of Hyades 
 
 Creation clasps her hands. 
 
 He shall bow low to God and know 
 
 Keen sorrow and delight. 
 
 The day'-s full pride and eventide, 
 
 The inmost thoughts of night. 
 82
 
 THE DREAMER. J 
 
 Into their calm white waves of balm 
 His soul shall plunge and swim, 
 
 Fast silver-globed full moons unrobed 
 That float round Heaven's rim. 
 
 He shall bow low to God and know 
 
 God, and be known of Him: 
 He shall surprise within the skies 
 
 The watching Seraphim. 
 
 He shall be known about the Throne 
 When names are named above, 
 
 As one redeemed through dreams he dreamed- 
 As one Beloved of Love.
 
 The Lost Voice. 
 
 Hanniman, swarthy of face, seated by the camp fire 
 on a misty morning' among the lonely hills where 
 they had gone a-hunting, told this story of the Lost 
 Voice to his mates of the chase, while the heavy 
 drops fell from the leaves and the birds perched in 
 silence, with indrawn necks, above and about them. 
 
 " Through many moons a rumour had reached our 
 tribe of wonderful singing that had been heard away 
 in a hidden sea-valley, where dwelt a strange white 
 people that had built them dwellings on a little flat 
 guarded by a river, the seas, and the hills. 
 
 *' For many years many tribes, but principally 
 our own, had tried to conquer that people, but the 
 way to their living place was along a sea-track that 
 came up from the coast upon a high and rocky hill 
 crowned with bush, except where it overlooked the 
 river and the valley. 
 
 ** However carefully any attacking party ap- 
 proached, the white people always had warning, and 
 were ready to slaughter the invaders at the crossing 
 of the stream. 
 
 "There many a bloody fight had been fought, 
 
 but no foe had ever succeeded in getting a foothold 
 
 within the village. 
 
 84
 
 THE LOST VOICE. 85 
 
 " One day, I know not how, it came to be known 
 that the secret of the warning's was in a little lake 
 called Waimarama, or 'The water that is a mirror.' 
 The water lay away, but not far, from the rocky 
 bluff up which the sea-track climbed, and when an 
 enemy appeared overlooking- it, his shadow was 
 always thrown upon the lake Waimarama in time 
 to warn the white people and allow them to arm 
 and meet their foes at the River of Blood, 
 
 "Bar Bar, the leader of our people, stole on the 
 evening-time alone, keeping in the shadows and 
 the cover, down to the headland to watch and to 
 listen. 
 
 *' By the side of Waimarama he saw a woman 
 of a beauty that filled him with wonder. She was 
 straight and tall, not gross of form and squat and 
 ugly like the women of our tribe, but clean-limbed 
 as an antelope. 
 
 *' Her hands and her feet showed that she had 
 done no rude work or heavy carrying. Her throat 
 rose from her breast like a smooth, white, sloping 
 column, and her hair was the colour of oak leaves 
 when the autumn is on them and the sun is shining 
 through. 
 
 •* As Bar Bar looked she began to sing. 
 
 " She sang the stars into the sky. 
 
 *' Next day Bar Bar missed a great dog- wolf with 
 his club. 
 
 ■' The day after. Bar Bar's spear went wide of a
 
 86 THE LOST VOICE. 
 
 boar he was hunting-, and a red gash in his leg ran 
 with blood. 
 
 " Word of these things quickly spread through 
 the tribe, and men began to mutter that his hand 
 and his eye were failing. He went moodily about 
 in the bush and avoided, as much as he might, the 
 eyes of his people. 
 
 " At last he came to them with purpose in his 
 voice, and they talked and armed for war. 
 
 " Before dawn they were afoot, making for the 
 d\velling--place of the white people. 
 
 ** Before noon Waimarama gave the warning to 
 the people by it, and a little while after, the two 
 forces met in the River of Blood. They fought 
 with loud cries and savage yells, but not a man of 
 our men found footing on the bank. 
 
 " Suddenly there was a strange commotion in the 
 sea. 
 
 " The women of the village saw it, and they sent 
 word to their chief. 
 
 " He left his fighting down by the river and 
 climbed the bank, blood and water dripping from 
 him. 
 
 " ' Ugh,' he said in disgust, ' they are Black Fish,' 
 and he returned to his fighting. 
 
 *' Slowly and slowly the fish drew inshore, sport- 
 ing with each other and with the waves. 
 
 "They rose and they fell and they wallowed, 
 cominsf nearer and nearer.
 
 THE LOST VOICE. 87 
 
 " They were Indeed a merry shoal of Black Fish. 
 
 " And at last they rolled on the hard sand, borne 
 upon it by a great breaker, and then — each Black 
 Fish rose to his feet and ran, carrying- in one hand 
 a stone axe, and in the other a spear. . . . That 
 night the Singing- Woman and the chief of the white 
 people lay bound in the camp of our tribe. 
 
 " Where the round plot of green is surrounded 
 by a ring of terraced rocks rising high above it 
 they took them at sunset of next day, for Bar Bar 
 believed that evening only was the time of the 
 Woman's singing. 
 
 "All around them, tier upon tier, rose the faces 
 of the people of our tribe, men, women, and children, 
 with the dogs, like a wolf-pack, looking downward 
 where the woman stood. 
 
 " Bar Bar loosed her bonds and commanded her 
 to sing. 
 
 ** She refused, with scorn upon her lips. 
 
 *' Bar Bar commanded a slave to smite her with 
 a supple rod. 
 
 "The scorn filled the eyes of the woman as she 
 stood proudly there, though there was rage in the 
 eyes of the man, who lay bound upon the earth. 
 
 ** Then the man spoke in a low voice, and the 
 woman turned to Bar Bar and signed that his bonds 
 should be loosed, and that he should be placed upon 
 the terraced rock between her and the sky if they 
 would hear her sing.
 
 88 THE LOST VOICE. 
 
 ** So they loosed the bonds from the man and 
 placed him between her and the sky. 
 
 "A hush fell over all the people. No wind 
 touched them there. No leaf moved, for none 
 grew near. All the people were as still as the 
 rock under and around them. 
 
 "Then low, but growing- louder, swelling into a 
 tempest of sound, came the voice. 
 
 *' The eyes of Bar Bar gleamed. 
 
 " The woman, with her look ever fixed upon the 
 chief of the white people, sang on until a flame 
 burned between them — a shaft of clear light, straight 
 as a spear. 
 
 *' Her breasts, as if filled with the morning, never 
 seemed to want to breathe — though they rose and 
 fell like the slow sea waves. Her throat swelled 
 out like the throat of a singing bird. 
 
 ** Her teeth gleamed. Her eyes and her hair 
 shone. 
 
 " Her body became a blown flame, that quivered 
 and swayed and thrilled and throbbed with the beat- 
 ing of that wonderful voice. A charm stole over 
 all the listening tribe. They swayed and swayed to 
 the song, as little trees bend to the wind and swing 
 back again. Their eyes were dim, for they seemed 
 to see the singer through the mist. Even the 
 gloomy face of Bar Bar began to shine. 
 
 *' At last, breathing quickly and calling in her 
 song, she threw her head back, her arms forward
 
 THE LOST VOICE. 89 
 
 and upward, and she seemed to rise in the air. At 
 the same moment the man arose and floated towards 
 her. They met, and clasped each other before the 
 eyes of all who sat there without power to move or 
 speak. They ming^led and rose like a waft of white 
 smoke, and rose higher and higher, growing brighter 
 and brighter, until, following them, the eyes of all 
 saw them fixed in the heavens — a feathered star. 
 
 *' And whenever the star with the feather of light 
 appears, though it may be near or far, dim or bright, 
 the people of our tribe say ' That is the white magic 
 — the spirit of the Chief of the White People, and 
 the spirit of the Lost Voice made one forever and 
 forever.' "
 
 .va. 
 
 Come back and we'll remember 
 (You can remember too), 
 
 The first days of September, 
 
 When Spring came in, with you. 
 
 Ah! those were days of laughter, 
 Of ballads clear and sweet, 
 
 When all the flow'rs ran after 
 The prints of your white feet. 
 
 I set your cradle rocking 
 
 Whence sleep had fled away. 
 
 To see your glad eyes mocking 
 The sunbeams where they lay. 
 
 Glad eyes they were, and growing 
 More tender and more true. 
 
 They showed the Woman glowing 
 Beneath the fire and blue. 
 
 I held your hand to lighten 
 The first steps of your way. 
 
 And feel your fingers tighten 
 Still on my own to-day. 
 9«
 
 EVA. 91 
 
 You are the wise child-woman 
 
 Who read me thro' and thro'; 
 Who taught me to be human 
 
 Is to be God-like too. 
 
 You showed me lotus-islands 
 
 White shored, and plumed with trees, 
 And crowned with snowy highlands, 
 
 Above melodious seas. 
 
 I know that joy-bells tinkled 
 
 For you with silver sound, 
 I know that fair stars twinkled, 
 
 In some new heaven you found. 
 
 You saw the fairies meeting 
 On sunbeams where they walk, 
 
 And heard their words of greeting. 
 For all my foolish talk. 
 
 Your face was the reflection 
 
 Of the kind thoughts of kings 
 That hold the recollection 
 
 Of all unuttered things. 
 
 So to your coronation 
 
 When you are woman-crowned, 
 I'll bring the adoration 
 
 Of all the years profound.
 
 92 EVA. 
 
 When you, with your child-teaching-, 
 
 Made me a Httle wise, 
 With thoughts far, far out-reachingf 
 
 The bounds of all surmise. 
 
 To give all sorrow warning 
 From your girl's paradise. 
 
 May angels of the morning 
 Look thro' your happy eyes. 
 
 Some quiet thought recalling 
 To you of the lost years, 
 
 To keep your feet from falling, 
 To keep your eyes from tears.
 
 Burn the Wind. 
 
 Old Burn the Wind, 
 Whose black face grinned, 
 
 Was shaping- an axe for battle; 
 And the ringing- sound 
 In his cavern drowned 
 
 The Httle streamlet's prattle. 
 
 Still he could hear. 
 From the forest near, 
 
 Low grunts from his charcoal-burners, 
 As up they stole 
 To his cave with coal, 
 
 Like a string of muted mourners. 
 
 'Twas the first axe-blade 
 In the young world made, 
 
 Its face had been seen by no men. 
 For the sharpened stone 
 And the pointed bone 
 
 Did arm the angry foemen. 
 
 From red to blue 
 
 The edge changed hue, 
 
 Till the eye could scarcely find it; 
 And a hand-length long. 
 Both keen and strong, 
 
 He shaped a spike behind it. 
 93
 
 94 BURN THE WIND. 
 
 When the edge was whet 
 On a stone made wet, 
 
 He started again a clamour, 
 For around it all, 
 With a tender fall, 
 
 He tap-tapped with his hammer. 
 
 And low he laughed 
 As he fitted the shaft 
 
 That he from an ash did borrow. 
 And he swung it wide, 
 And cried in pride, 
 
 " I will split some heads to-morrow," 
 
 Ere the daily flame 
 Of the morning came 
 
 Uprising from the mountains, 
 Or the birds took wing, 
 To perch and sing, 
 
 By rock and leafy fountains. 
 
 He had led his men 
 To a quiet glen — 
 
 The darkness slowly fading ; 
 They crept along. 
 Two hundred strong, 
 
 And climbed a palisading. 
 
 Soon ran the blood 
 In a smoking flood 
 
 Where Earth her thirst was slaking, 
 But no hand stayed 
 Till the palisade 
 
 Held a tribe far past awaking.
 
 BURN THE WIND. 95 
 
 Yet one gold head 
 From a bloody bed, 
 
 Where dreamless lay another, 
 Arose like a flow'r 
 In that awful hour, 
 
 And a child-voice called out "Mother!" 
 
 And Burn the Wind, 
 
 Tho' his tribesmen grinned, 
 
 Stooped down and took and kissed her: 
 Tho' the blood on his hands 
 iMade crimson brands, 
 
 He called her his "gold-haired sister." 
 
 For many years 
 
 He made long spears 
 
 For his men, and swords and armour: 
 And they slew so quick 
 That the land grew sick 
 
 And held scarce herd or farmer. 
 
 But the child, tho' slight. 
 Grew a woman's height, 
 
 And Burn the Wind soon noted 
 She was pure as streams 
 That flow in dreams, 
 
 And for song she was golden-throated. 
 
 She spoke of the killed 
 And the fields untilled, 
 
 Of the lives so vainly squandered, 
 Full many days 
 By the furnace blaze, 
 
 While her great black captor pondered.
 
 96 BURN THE WIND, 
 
 And once on a day 
 He said " I will slay 
 
 No more," to his cave-mate bowing-. 
 Tlien the axe so rare, 
 With a loving care, 
 
 He shaped to a share for plowing. 
 
 He called his men 
 
 To the green in the glen — 
 
 They came at his bidding willing ; 
 But their faces fell 
 When he said " Mark well! 
 
 I forbid all needless killing. 
 
 " Our Gods are mild, 
 For they sent a child, 
 
 Now grown into a woman. 
 To teach my heart 
 That the better part 
 
 Is Love, not Hate inhuman." 
 
 Then Golden Head 
 Rose up, and said, 
 
 " Heav'nward I must be going; 
 Did I still remain 
 You would entertain 
 
 An angel, not jDikiiowiiig.'' 
 
 THE WALTEK SCOTT PUbLISHING CO., LTD., hELLlNG-ON-TYNE.
 
 Critical Notices of "The Afterglow" and "The 
 Promise of the Star," by the same Author. 
 
 Dr. Rutherfurd Waddell, Eminent Critic and Litterateur. 
 
 " Here is the clearest, most authentic note we have heard 
 in New Zealand. . . . We might go on for long quoting lines 
 and verses that make luminous pictures and haunt the 
 memory with their magic and their music. If this 'After- 
 glow ' be indeed the prelude of the morn, the morn will be 
 memorable for New Zealand." 
 
 New Zealand Magazine. 
 
 " Often the mind is bewildered by the opulence of his 
 imagery. Many examples might be given of poetry that is 
 perfect in idea and form." 
 
 New Zealand Herald. 
 
 "The thing we term culture is indeed a gift from the gods. 
 It is possessed by Mr. Ross in no small measure. The 
 volume is so good that it can afford to dispense with the 
 merely complimentary criticism which colonials usually 
 receive from colonials, and to stand on its merits as a con- 
 tribution to English letters." 
 
 The Triad. 
 
 " Mr. Ross is a student of nature, his verse is essentially 
 human, and he has an undoubted lyrical faculty." 
 
 New Zealand Mail. 
 
 " Mr. Ross is an authentic poet, with wealth of imagery, 
 chasteness of thought, and elevation of expression." 
 
 Auckland Observer. 
 
 " David Ross, who has been known for some years as a 
 writer of occasional verse, and whose true poetic gift has 
 been universally acknowledged, must henceforth be regarded 
 as an author standing on his own pedestal." 
 
 New Zealand Times. 
 " Mr. Ross's exquisite verse — ' The Promise of the Star.'"
 
 A. G. Stephens in "The Bookman." 
 
 " There are haunting lines — hnes that curve in beauty." 
 
 Otago Daily Times. 
 
 " The hnes of his blank verse are sonorous and musical, 
 sometimes rising into passion, sometimes sinking into pathos, 
 or again touched with a haunting sweetness, reviving scents 
 and sounds long half-forgotten." 
 
 Glasgow Weekly. 
 
 " It is a poem of remarkable strength and beauty." 
 
 Cambridge Independent. 
 
 "Among the author's gifts are conception, grand and of 
 organic type, firm grasp, delicate touch, and, above all, 
 power of tropical expression." 
 
 Hon. W. P. Reeves, High Commissioner, London. 
 
 "The poems are particularly good, and I might go on 
 mentioning favourite bits, but I will quote no more, and 
 content myself with congratulating you upon your work." 
 
 S. R. Crockett, London. 
 
 " I think most of your verses are beautiful. I hear the 
 singing notes in them, especially in those that hymn the sea- 
 fierceness and the sun-lit weather. Almost they had made 
 me twang up my old Jew's-harp again." 
 
 Havelock Ellis, Carbis Bay, Cornwall. 
 
 " I admire their fluency and musical quality, and I trust 
 you will continue to cultivate your wonderful gift of song." 
 
 Lord Henry Somerset, Florence, Italy. 
 
 " I am much obliged to you for having thought of sending 
 me your beautiful poems. There are songs that in other 
 days I would have set to music, but I have said all I had to 
 say, and have given up writing music for good and all." 
 
 Madam Melba, Government House, Sydney. 
 
 " I feel sure that, before I read ' Hearts of the Pure,' you 
 knew I would like it. I wish I could talk to you about it ; 
 but as I can't, I must be content with writing that I wish it 
 the success it deserves. It ought to be a big success."
 
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