On the Garden-wall

(Moon Poems for the Children/Fairy-tales for the Children)

    Oh, once I walked a garden
    In dreams.    'Twas yellow grass.
    And many orange-trees grew there
    In sand as white as glass.
    The curving, wide wall-border
    Was marble, like the snow.
    I walked that wall a fairy-prince
    And, pacing quaint and slow,
    Beside me were my pages,
    Two giant, friendly birds.
    Half-swan they were, half peacock.
    They spake in courtier-words.
    Their inner wings a chariot,
    Their outer wings for flight,
    They lifted me from dreamland.
    We bade those trees good-night.
    Swiftly above the stars we rode.
    I looked below me soon.
    The white-walled garden I had ruled
    Was one lone flower - the moon.