having fashioned it and peopled it, he can inhabit his creation in
perfect content quite regardless of his material surroundings,
unless some grown-up, with his matter-of-fact bluntness, happens
to break the spell.

I have endeavoured to express this peculiar faculty of the child's
in rather halting blank verse. I apologise for giving it here, as
I make no claim to be able to write verse. My only excuse must be
that my lines attempt to convey what every man and woman must have
felt, though probably the average person would express himself in
far better language than I am able to command.

"Eheu fugaces Postume! Postume!
Labuntur anni.

"The memories of childhood are a web
Of gossamer, most infinitely frail
And tender, shot with gleaming threads of gold
And silver, through the iridescent weft
Of subtlest tints of azure and of rose;
Woven of fragile nothings, yet most dear,
As binding us to that dim, far-off time,
When first our lungs inhaled the fragrance sweet
Of a new world, where all was bright and fair.
As we approach the end of mortal things,
The band of comrades ever smaller grows;
For those who have not shared our trivial round,
Nor helped with us to forge its many links,
Can only listen with dull, wearied mind.
Some few there are on whom the gods bestowed