VII.

Fairies.


Glory endures when calumny hath fled;
And fairies show themselves, in friendly guise,
To all who hold a trust beyond the dead,
And all who pray, albeit so worldly-wise,
With cheerful hearts or wildly-weeping eyes.
They come and go when children are in bed
To gladden them with dreams from out the skies
And sanctify all tears that they have shed!
Fairies are wing'd for wandering to and fro.
They live in legends; they survive the Greeks.
Wisdom is theirs; they live for us and grow,
Like things ambrosial, fairer than the freaks
Of signs and seasons which the poets know,
Or fires of sunset on the mountain-peaks.