lay the other side of those houses, but the street was of most pure
untrampled grass with such marvellous flowers in it that they lured
downward from great heights the flocks of butterflies as they traveled
by, going I know not whence. The other side of the street there was
pavement again but no houses of any kind, and what there was in place
of them I did not stop to see, for I turned to my right and walked
along the back of Go-by Street till I came to the open fields and the
gardens of the cottages that I sought. Huge flowers went up out of
these gardens like slow rockets and burst into purple blooms and stood
there huge and radiant on six-foot stalks and softly sang strange
songs. Others came up beside them and bloomed and began singing too.
A very old witch came out of her cottage by the back door and into the
garden in which I stood.

"What are these wonderful flowers?" I said to her.

"Hush! Hush!" she said, "I am putting the poets to bed. These
flowers are their dreams."

And in a lower voice I said: "What wonderful songs are they singing?"
and she said, "Be still and listen."

And I listened and found they were singing of my own childhood and of
things that happened there so far away that I had quite forgotten them
till I heard the wonderful song.

"Why is the song so faint?" I said to her.

"Dead voices," she said, "Dead voices," and turned back again to her
cottage saying: "Dead voices" still, but softly for fear that she