Just after a bit of rain
on a hazy summer day,
at the edge where yard and hedge,
meet sullen forest ways,
Where grass of proper height,
meets crooked trees and shaded light,
and practical ditches or well-dug nooks,
become mossy banks and bubbling brooks,
Where the ordered world of modern folk,
Breaks upon the glade,
past the briars, where trees conspire
in sunbeams among the shade,
Lies the world of fairy,
In all its clever wonder
For men to see, (if it can be seen)
What this world will offer.
But some will say “A thousand times
I’ve walked along this way
and never once, no not once,
have the fairies come out to play!”
When the politician rambles,
About what his people want,
He pretends they’re out there living
Exactly as he thought.
And when the economist speaks
Of what living people do
his ideas are told to all the world
As if he really knew.
The historians are no better,
because out of all that’s been,
They choose one or two then think them through
and say “Such does all truth end!”
These men have walked through woods
But have never seen a fairy,
Strolling with arrogance along the paths
They return to a world that’s dreary.
“Where is the world of spirit” they ask?
“What’s happened to all the magic?”
They’ve moved themselves from where fairies dwell,
And replaced the sprites with fractions!
It is the printing press, if anything
That ushers the fairies away.
It drives the minds of men and times,
and a naive heart, betrays.
But no one controls everything
And even empires have their bounds.
Where those ends meet the wild retreats,
It’s there that fairies are found.
Stolen Child