We knew that land once,
You and I,and once we wandered therein the long days now long gone by,a dark child and a fair.
Was it on the paths of firelight thoughtin winter cold and white,or in the blue-spun twilit hoursof little early tucked-up bedsin drowsy summer night,that you and I in Sleep went downto meet each other there,your dark hair on your white nightgownand mine was tangled fair?
We wandered shyly hand in hand,small footprints in the golden sand,and gathered pearls and shells in pails,while all about the nightengaleswere singing in the trees.
We dug for silver with our spades,and caught the sparkle of the seas,then ran ashore to greenlit glades,and found the warm and winding lanethat now we cannot find again,between tall whispering trees.
The air was neither night nor day,an ever-eve of gloaming light,when first there glimmered into sightthe Little House of Play.
New-built it was, yet very old,white, and thatched with straws of gold,and pierced with peeping latticesthat looked toward the sea;and our own children's garden-plotswere there: our own forgetmenots,red daisies, cress and mustard,and radishes for tea.
There all the borders, trimmed with box,were filled with favourite flowers, with phlox,with lupins, pinks, and hollyhocks,beneath a red may-tree;and all the gardens full of folkthat their own little language spoke,but not to You and Me.
For some had silver watering-cansand watered all their gowns,or sprayed each other; some laid plansto build their houses, little townsand dwellings in the trees.
And some were clambering on the roof;some crooning lonely and aloof;some dancing round the fairy-ringsall garlanded in daisy-strings,while some upon their kneesbefore a little white-robed kingcrowned with marigold would singtheir rhymes of long ago.
But side by side a little pairwith heads together, mingled hair,went walking to and frostill hand in hand; and what they said,ere Waking far apart them led,that only we now know.
