'Take the whole world with you into fairyland,' he heard the low voice
come murmuring in his ear across the lilacs. And there was starlight
in it--that gentle, steady brilliance that steals into people while
they sleep and dream, tracing patterns of glory they may recognise
when they wake, yet marvelling whence it came. 'The world wants its
fairyland back again, and won't be happy till it gets it.'
A bird listening to them in the stillness sang a little burst of song,
then paused again to listen.
'Once give them of your magic, and each may shape his fairyland as he
chooses...' the musical voice ran on.
The flowers seemed alive and walking. This was a voice of beauty. Some
lilac bud was singing in its sleep. Sirius had dropped a ray across
its lips of blue and coaxed it out to dance. There was a murmur and a
stir among the fruit-trees too. The apple blossoms painted the
darkness with their tiny fluttering dresses, while old Aldebaran
trimmed them silently with gold, and partners from the Milky Way swept
rustling down to lead the violets out. Oh, there was revelry to-night,
and the fairy spell of the blue-eyed Spring was irresistible....
'But the world will never dance,' he whispered sadly, half to himself
perhaps; 'it's far too weary.'
'It will follow a leader,' came the soft reply, 'who dances well and
pipes the true old music so that it can hear.
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