Part IV: Pease-Blossom and Mustard-Seed

Shyly we surveyed our guidesAs through the gloomy woods we wentIn the light that the straggling moonbeams lent:We envied them their easy strides!Pease-blossom in his crimson capAnd delicate suit of rose-leaf green,His crimson sash and his jewelled dagger,Strutted along with an elegant swaggerWhich showed that he didn't care one rapFor anything less than a Fairy Queen:His eyes were deep like the eyes of a poet,Although his crisp and curly hairCertainly didn't seem to show it!While Mustard-seed was a devil-may-careEpigrammatic and pungent fellowClad in a splendid suit of yellow,With emerald stars on his glittering breastAnd eyes that shone with a diamond light:They made you feel sure it would always be bestTo tell him the truth: he was not perhaps quiteSo polite as Pease-blossom, but then who could beQuite such a debonair fairy as he?

We never could tell you one-half that we heardAnd saw on that journey. For instance, a birdTen times as big as an elephant stoodBy the side of a nest like a great thick wood:The clouds in glimmering wreaths were spreadBehind its vast and shadowy headWhich rolled at us trembling below. (Its eyesWere like great black moons in those pearl-pale skies.)And we feared he might take us, perhaps, for a worm.

But he ruffled his breast with the sound of a storm,And snuggled his head with a careless disdainUnder his huge hunched wing again;And Mustard-seed said, as we stole thro' the dark,There was nothing to fear: it was only a Lark!

And so he cheered the way alongWith many a neat little epigram,While dear Pease-blossom before him swamOn a billow of lovely moonlit song,Telling us why they had left their homeIn Sherwood, and had hither comeTo dwell in this magical scented clime,This dim old Forest of sweet Wild Thyme,

"Men toil," he said, "from morn till nightWith bleeding hands and blinded sightFor gold, more gold! They have betrayedThe trust that in their souls was laid;Their fairy birthright they have soldFor little disks of mortal gold;And now they cannot even seeThe gold upon the greenwood tree,The wealth of coloured lights that passIn soft gradations through the grass,The riches of the love untoldThat wakes the day from grey to gold;And howsoe'er the moonlight weavesMagic webs among the leavesEnglishmen care little nowFor elves beneath the hawthorn bough:Nor if Robin should returnDare they of an outlaw learn;For them the Smallest Flower is furled,Mute is the music of the world;And unbelief has driven awayBeauty from the blossomed spray."

Then Mustard-seed with diamond eyesTaught us to be laughter-wise,And he showed us how that TimeIs much less powerful than a rhyme;And that Space is but a dream;"For look," he said, with eyes agleam,"Now you are become so smallYou think the Thyme a forest tall;But underneath your feet you seeA world of wilder mysteryWhere, if you were smaller yet,You would just as soon forgetThis forest, which you'd leave aboveAs you have left the home you love!For, since the Thyme you used to knowSeems a forest here below,What if you should sink againAnd find there stretched a mighty plainBetween each grass-blade and the next?You'd think till you were quite perplexed!Especially if all the flowersThat lit the sweet Thyme-forest bowersWere in that wild transcendent changeTurned to Temples, great and strange,With many a pillared portal highAnd domes that swelled against the sky!How foolish, then, you will agree,Are those who think that all must seeThe world alike, or those who scornAnother who, perchance, was bornWhere--in a different dream from theirs--What they call sins to him are prayers!

"We cannot judge; we cannot know;All things mingle; all things flow;There's only one thing constant here--Love--that untranscended sphere:Love, that while all ages runHolds the wheeling worlds in one;Love that, as your sages tell,Soars to heaven and sinks to hell."

Even as he spoke, we seemed to growSmaller, the Thyme trees seemed to goFarther away from us: new dreamsFlashed out on us with mystic gleamsOf mighty Temple-domes: deep aweHeld us all breathless as we sawA carven portal glimmering outBetween new flowers that put to routOur other fancies: in sweet fearWe tiptoed past, and seemed to hearA sound of singing from withinThat told our souls of Peterkin:Our thoughts of him were still the sameHowe'er the shadows went and came,So, on we wandered, hand in hand,And all the world was fairy-land.

And as we went we seemed to hearSurging up from distant dellsA solemn music, soft and clearAs if a field of lily-bellsWere tolling all together, sweetBut sad and low and keeping timeTo multitudinous marching feetWith a slow funereal beatAnd a deep harmonious chimeThat told us by its dark refrainThe reason fairies suffered pain.