THE SPLENDID SECRET

Now father stood engaged in talk

With mother on that narrow walk

Between the laurels ( where we play

At Red-skins lurking for their prey )

And the grey old wall of roses

Where the Persian kitten dozes

And the sunlight sleeps upon

Crannies of the crumbling stone

— So hot it is you scarce can bear

Your naked hand upon it there,

Though there luxuriating in heat

With a slow and gorgeous beat

White-winged currant-moths display

Their spots of black and gold all day.—

Well, since we greatly wished to know

Whether we too might some day go

Where little Peterkin had gone

Without one word and all alone,

We crept up through the laurels there

Hoping that we might overhear

The splendid secret, darkly great,

Of Peterkin's mysterious fate;

And on what high adventure bound

He left our pleasant garden-ground,

Whether for old Japan once more

He voyaged from the dim blue shore,

Or whether he set out to run

By candle-light to Babylon.

We just missed something father said

About a young prince that was dead,

A little warrior that had fought

And failed: how hopes were brought to nought

He said, and mortals made to bow

Before the Juggernaut of Death,

And all the world was darker now,

For Time's grey lips and icy breath

Had blown out all the enchanted lights

That burned in Love's Arabian nights;

And now he could not understand

Mother's mystic fairy-land,

“Land of the dead, poor fairy-tale,”

He murmured, and her face grew pale,

And then with great soft shining eyes

She leant to him — she looked so wise —

And, with her cheek against his cheek,

We heard her, ah so softly, speak.

“Husband, there was a happy day,

Long ago, in love's young May,

When with a wild-flower in your hand

You echoed that dead poet's cry —

‘ Little flower, but if I could understand!’

And you saw it had roots in the depths of the sky,

And there in that smallest bud lay furled

The secret and meaning of all the world.”

He shook his head and then he tried

To kiss her, but she only cried

And turned her face away and said,

“You come between me and my dead!

His soul is near me, night and day,

But you would drive it far away;

And you shall never kiss me now

Until you lift that brave old brow

Of faith I know so well; or else

Refute the tale the skylark tells,

Tarnish the glory of that May,

Explain the Smallest Flower away.”

And still he said, “Poor fairy-tales,

How terribly their starlight pales

Before the solemn sun of truth

That rises o'er the grave of youth!”

“Is heaven a fairy-tale?” she said,—

And once again he shook his head;

And yet we ne'er could understand

Why heaven should not be fairy-land,

A part of heaven at least, and why

The thought of it made mother cry,

And why they went away so sad,

And father still quite unforgiven,

For what could children be but glad

To find a fairy-land in heaven?

And as we talked it o'er we found

Our brains were really spinning round;

But Dick, our eldest, late returned

From school, by all the lore he'd learned

Declared that we should seek the lost

Smallest Flower at any cost.

For, since within its leaves lay furled

The secret of the whole wide world,

He thought that we might learn therein

The whereabouts of Peterkin;

And, if we found the Flower, we knew

Father would be forgiven, too;

And mother's kiss atone for all

The quarrel by the rose-hung wall;

We knew, not how we knew not why,

But Dick it was who bade us try,

Dick made it all seem plain and clear,

And Dick it is who helps us here

To tell this tale of fairy-land

In words we scarce can understand.

For ere another golden hour

Had passed, our anxious parents found

We'd left the scented garden-ground

To seek — the Smallest Flower.