Over those doors are many names written--names never to be forgotten
while the English tongue is spoken. And in that palace there is
fairyland; there are giants and monsters; there are warrior heroes
like Beowulf, and saintly heroes like Cuthbert; there are noble boys
like Alfred; there are poets, princes, lovely ladies, little children,
spirited horses, faithful dogs; there are heard the sound of singing,
the playing of the harp, the beat of feet dancing, cries of gladness,
cries of sorrow, the rolling of the organ, the fluting of birds, the
laughter of water, and the whisper of every wind that has blown upon
the fields of the world; there are seen flowers of every marvelous and
starlike shape, of every rainbow hue, and jewels as shining as the
lamps hanging in the Great Palace, and fruits rare and strange filling
the Great Palace with sweet fragrance and color; there are rooms unlike
any rooms we have ever seen before; and the years are there--nearly
two thousand--numbered and made beautiful; there, too, are Wisdom and
Kindness and Courage and Faith and Modesty and Love and Self-Control,
coming and going hither and yon through the wide hallways or on service
bent up and down the narrow corridors.
It is a Palace of Enchantment, is it not? Yes, it is a Palace of
Enchantment, and I can think of no greater happiness, no stronger
assurance that we shall learn how to be our best selves and to rule
ourselves, no greater inspiration to be wise and kind while we are
boys and girls, and when we grow up no fuller promise of a good time
and many kinds of happiness and pleasure, than just to take the gate
into that palace, listen to its songs and poems and stories, taste of
its fruits, hold some of its flowers in our hands, grow warm in its
sunshine, dream in its moonlight, and watch the fairies dance with the
feet that dance there, play with its jewels, listen to the whisper of
the winds that blow around the world, lay our hands in the brave hands
of Love and Courage, Wisdom and Kindness, who dwell there; knock on
those golden doors where we would go in and be alone; and come out
again, knowing that we have won the great enchantment, which is the
companionship of beautiful and imperishable story and poem, song and
play.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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