day.

Almost like a dance it is, it holds no hint of sorrow,
Almost like a waltz it is, to set the pulse a-thrill;
Not a hint of tears in it--and oh, the night is
coming--
Coming like a purple shroud across the purple hill!
Sad the little farmhouse is, the doors swing on their
hinges,
All the windows look like wounds, pitiful and bare,
And a shell has torn a gash in the broken roof of it,
But the music lilts along like a happy prayer.

Do pale ghostly fingers play on a ghostly violin?
(War has swept the countryside of the songs it
knew!)
Merry is the little tune--not a wistful questioning--
Merry with a rosy thrill of a dream come true.

Just a little wisp of song played softly in the twilight,
Such a happy little song--and oh, the dusk is gray!
Such a joyous little song, and oh, the night is
coming--
Coming with the bitter chill that marks the death
of day!

RETURN

Now that the tumult of the war is over,
The fairy folk are coming back to France;
They push their way through tangled grass and
clover,
To find the ring where once they used to dance.
They come half-wistfully, the little people,
Through broken town, and battered market place,
They come past shell-torn church with shattered
steeple,
They come as smiles come to a tear-stained face.

They come with packs of dreams, with love and
laughter,
They come with songs rolled snugly up in sacks;
They come with promises for ever after,
Tied neatly into bundles on their backs!
They bring the seeds of magic so that flowers,
The flowers of new happiness and mirth,
May bloom, once more, in sweet enchanted bowers,
Above the heart-ache of a tortured earth.

Now that the angry powder smoke has vanished,
The fairy folk are coming as of yore,
The fairy folk that hate and war had banished...
They pause beside a loosely swinging door,
To set it right on hinges that were breaking,
They lift an old rag doll with tender care,
And hurry on--because their hearts are aching,
For one-time childish faces that were there.

They cross forgotten meadows in the gloaming,
Through forest aisles at even-time they