r worlds I loved you, long ago;
Love that hath no beginning hath no end._

THE FOREST OF WILD THYME

_DEDICATED TO HELEN, ROSIE, AND BEATRIX_

PERSONS OF THE TALE

OURSELVES
FATHER
MOTHER
LITTLE BOY BLUE
THE HIDEOUS HERMIT
THE KING OF FAIRY-LAND
PEASE-BLOSSOM
MUSTARD-SEED
Dragons, Fairies, Mammoths, Angels, etc.

APOLOGIA

One more hour to wander free
With Puck on his unbridled bee
Thro' heather-forests, leagues of bloom,
Our childhood's maze of scent and sun!
Forbear awhile your notes of doom,
Dear Critics, give me still this one
Swift hour to hunt the fairy gleam
That flutters thro' the unfettered dream.
It mocks me as it flies, I know:
All too soon the gleam will go;
Yet I love it and shall love
My dream that brooks no narrower bars
Than bind the darkening heavens above,
My Jack o'Lanthorn of the stars:
Then, I'll follow it no more,
I'll light the lamp: I'll close the door.

PRELUDE

Hush! if you remember how we sailed to old Japan,
Peterkin was with us then, our little brother Peterkin!
Now we've lost him, so they say: I think the tall thin man
Must have come and touched him with his curious twinkling fan
And taken him away again, our merry little Peterkin;
He'll be frightened all alone; we'll find him if we can;
Come and look for Peterkin, poor little Peterkin.

No one would believe us if we told them what we know,
Or they wouldn't grieve for Peterkin, merry little Peterkin!
If they'd only watched us roaming through the streets of Miyako,
And travelling in a palanquin where parents never go,
And seen the golden gardens where we wandered once with Peterkin,
And smelt the purple orchards where the cherry-blossoms blow,
They wouldn't mourn for Peterkin, merry little Peterkin.

Put away your muskets, lay aside the drum,
Hang it by the wooden sword we made for little Peterkin!
He was once our trumpeter, now his bugle's dumb,
Pile your arms beneath it, for the owlet light is come,
We'll wander through the roses where we marched of old with Peterkin,
We'll search the summer sunset where the Hybla beehives hum,
And--if we meet a fairy there--we'll ask for news of Peterkin.

He was once our cabin-boy and cooked the sweets for tea;
And O, we've saile