“…Come away—With the fairies, hand in hand,

For the world is more full of weeping

Than you can understand.”

—WB Yeats

Chesterton, with the answer of Elf-land:

From the Wood of the Old Wives’ Fables

They glittered out of the grey,

And with all the Armies of Elf-land

I strove like a beast at bay;

With only a right arm wearied,

Only a red sword worn,

And the pride of the House of Adam

That holdeth the stars in scorn.

For they came with chains of flowers

And lilies lances free,

There in the quiet greenwood

To take my grief from me.

And I said, “Now all is shaken

When heavily hangs the brow,

When the hope of the years is taken

The last star sunken. Now—

“Hear, you chattering cricket,

Hear, you spawn of the sod,

The strange strong cry in the darkness

Of one man praising God,

“That out of the night and nothing

With travail of birth he came

To stand one hour in the sunlight

Only to say her name.

“Falls through her hair the sunshine

In showers; it touches, see,

Her high bright cheeks in turning;

Ah, Elfin Company,

“The world is hot and cruel,

We are weary of heart and hand.

But the world is more full of glory

Than you can understand.”

 

– GK Chesterton

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