Cross Roads

RETURN

     Now that the tumult of the war is over,
        The fairy folk are coming back to France;
     They push their way through tangled grass and
           clover,
        To find the ring where once they used to dance.
     They come half-wistfully, the little people,
        Through broken town, and battered market place,
     They come past shell-torn church with shattered
           steeple,
        They come as smiles come to a tear-stained face.

     They come with packs of dreams, with love and
           laughter,
        They come with songs rolled snugly up in sacks;
     They come with promises for ever after,
        Tied neatly into bundles on their backs!
     They bring the seeds of magic so that flowers,
        The flowers of new happiness and mirth,
     May bloom, once more, in sweet enchanted bowers,
        Above the heart-ache of a tortured earth.

     Now that the angry powder smoke has vanished,
        The fairy folk are coming as of yore,
     The fairy folk that hate and war had banished...
        They pause beside a loosely swinging door,
     To set it right on hinges that were breaking,
        They lift an old rag doll with tender care,
     And hurry on—because their hearts are aching,
        For one-time childish faces that were there.

     They cross forgotten meadows in the gloaming,
        Through forest aisles at even-time they creep;
     Where trenches were, their little feet are roaming,
        And where the heroes of the conflict sleep,
     They stop, a moment, wistful—and their singing
        Dies down into the semblance of a prayer;
     And tiny bells in far-off elf land ringing,
        Sound, like a silver promise, on the air.

     NOW THAT THE TUMULT OF THE WAR IS OVER,
        ONCE MORE THE COUNTRY WAKENS TO ROMANCE;
     FOR, THROUGH THE TANGLE OF THE GRASS AND CLOVER,
        THE FAIRY FOLK ARE COMING BACK TO FRANCE.