PART I

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.