gods. Neither the smoke of incense nor of the sacrifice burning reached those colossal heads, they sat there not to be measured, not to be overthrown, not to be worn away.
I said: “Who are those?”
One answered: “Alone the Immortals.”
And I said sadly: “I came not to see dread gods, but I came to shed my tears and to offer flowers at the feet of certain little years that are dead and may not come again.”
He answered me: “These are the years that are dead, alone the immortals; all years to be are Their children—They fashioned their smiles and their laughter; all earthly kings They have crowned, all gods They have created; all the events to be flow down from their feet like a river, the worlds are flying pebbles that They have already thrown, and Time and all his centuries behind him kneel there with bended crests in token of vassalage at Their potent feet.”
And when I heard this I turned away with my wreath, and went back to my own land comforted.
A Moral Little Tale
There was once an earnest Puritan who held it wrong to dance. And for his principles he labored hard, his was a zealous life. And there loved him all of those who hated the dance; and those that loved the dance respected him too; they said “He is a pure, good man and acts according to his lights.”
He did much to discourage dancing and helped to close several Sunday entertainments. Some kinds of poetry, he said, he liked, but not the fanciful kind as that might corrupt the thoughts of the very young. He always dressed in black.
He was quite interested in morality and was quite sincere and there grew to be much respect on Earth for his honest face and his flowing pure-white beard.
One night the Devil appeared unto him in a dream and said, “Well done.”
“Avaunt,” said that earnest man.
“No, no, friend,” said the Devil.
“Dare not to call me ‘friend,’ ” he answered bravely.
“Come, come, friend,” said the Devil. “Have you not done my work? Have you not put apart the couples that would dance? Have you not checked their laughter and their accursed mirth? Have you not worn my livery of black? O friend, friend, you do not know what a detestable thing it is to sit in hell and hear people being happy, and singing in theatres and singing in the fields, and whispering after dances under the moon,” and he fell to cursing fearfully.
“It is you,” said the Puritan, “that put into their hearts the evil desire to dance; and black is God’s own livery, not yours.”
And the Devil laughed contemptuously and spoke.
“He only made the silly colors,” he said, “and useless dawns on hill-slopes facing South, and butterflies flapping along them as soon as the sun rose high, and foolish maidens coming out to dance, and the warm mad West wind, and worst of all that pernicious influence Love.”
And when the Devil said that God made Love that earnest man sat up in bed and shouted “Blasphemy! Blasphemy!”
“It’s true,” said the Devil. “It isn’t I that send the village fools muttering and whispering two by two in the woods when the harvest moon is high, it’s as much as I can bear even to see them dancing.”
“Then,” said the man, “I have mistaken right for wrong; but as soon as I wake I will fight you yet.”
“O, no you don’t,” said the Devil. “You don’t wake up out of this sleep.”
And somewhere far away Hell’s black steel doors were opened, and arm in arm those two were drawn within, and the doors shut behind them and still they went arm in arm, trudging further and further into the deeps of Hell, and it was that Puritan’s punishment to know that those that he cared for on Earth would do evil as he had done.
The Return of Song
“The swans are singing again,” said to one another the gods. And looking downwards, for my dreams had taken me to some fair and far Valhalla, I saw below me an iridescent bubble not greatly larger than a star shine beautifully but faintly, and up and up from it looking larger and larger came a flock of white, innumerable swans, singing and singing and singing, till it seemed as though even the gods were wild ships swimming in music.
“What is it?” I said to one that was humble among the gods.
“Only a world has ended,” he said to me, “and the swans are coming back to the gods returning the gift of song.”
“A whole world dead!” I said.
“Dead,” said he that was humble among the gods. “The worlds are not forever; only song is immortal.”
“Look! Look!” he said. “There will be a new one soon.”
And I looked and saw the larks, going down from the gods.
Spring in Town
At a street corner sat, and played with a wind, Winter disconsolate.
Still tingled the fingers of the passersby and still their breath was visible, and still they huddled their chins into their coats when turning a corner they met with a new wind, still windows lighted early sent out into the street the thought of romantic comfort by evening fires; these things still were, yet the throne of Winter tottered, and every breeze brought tidings of further fortresses lost on lakes or boreal hill-slopes. And not any longer as a king did Winter appear in those streets, as when the city was decked with gleaming white to greet him as a conqueror and he rode in with his glittering icicles and haughty retinue of prancing winds, but he sat there with a little wind at the corner of the street like some old blind beggar with his hungry dog. And as to some old blind beggar Death approaches, and the alert ears of the sightless man prophetically hear his far-off footfall, so there came suddenly to Winter’s ears the sound, from some
