Across the Border

I have read somewhere that the birds of fairyland
are white as snow.—W. B. Yeats

Where all the trees bear golden flowers,

And all the birds are white;

Where fairy folk in dancing hours

Burn stars for candlelight;

Where every wind and leaf can talk,

But no man understand

Save one whose child-feet chanced to walk

Green paths of fairyland;

I followed two swift silver wings;

I stalked a roving song;

I startled shining, silent things;

I wandered all day long.

But when it seemed the shadowy hours

Whispered of soft-foot night,

I crept home to sweet common flowers,

Brown birds, and candlelight.

Source: The Poems of Sophie Jewett (1910)