less.

The charmed circle in which Br'er Fox and Br'er Rabbit shone as social
stars is yet with us, and we shall not let it go out from our lives.
The mystic childhood of a dim, mysterious race is brought to us
through these beings that have come to us from the olden time "when
animals talked like people."

"The Sign of the Wren's Nest" is peopled by these legendary forms with
their never-dying souls. They lurk in every corner and peer out from
every crevice. They hide behind the trees, and sometimes in the
moonlight we see them looking out at us as we walk along the path.
They crouch among interlacing vines and look at us through the lacy
screen with eyes in which slumber the traditions of the ages.

We look for the Magician who, with a wave of the hand, made all these
to live and move before us. We know he must be there. We "cannot make
him dead"; but he can make himself and us alive in the life of the
past. A little door, with one shutter of Memory and one of Faith,
opens before us, and he comes to dwell again in the world which he
created in "The Sign of the Wren's Nest."




"THE POET OF THE FLAG"

FRANCIS SCOTT KEY