when the sap rises in the trees, and that our dreams can make the trees
wither, and that one hears the bleating of the lambs of faery in
November, and that blind eyes can see more than other eyes. Because the
soul always believes in these, or in like things, the cell and the
wilderness shall never be long empty, or lovers come into the world who
will not understand the verse--


Heardst thou not sweet words among
That heaven-resounding minstrelsy?
Heardst thou not that those who die
Awake in a world of ecstasy?
How love, when limbs are interwoven,
And sleep, when the night of life is cloven,
And thought to the world's dim boundaries clinging,
And music when one's beloved is singing,
Is death?


1901.




THE FRIENDS OF THE PEOPLE OF FAERY


Those that see the people of faery most often, and so have the most of
their wisdom, are often very poor, but often, too, they are thought to
have a strength beyond that of man, as though one came, when one has