A great purple flower, that grew low down on the ground, lifted its brightness towards her as she passed: “And, oh!” sighed the flower, “she is fair, and sweet would it be if she would take me and wear me gently at her breast.” The child did not know the voice of flowers; but she stooped down and tore off the purple petals one by one. From the cup of the flower rolled a big golden bee: he had been sleeping there. For one second he buzzed on the ground, trying to remember where he was and to understand what had happened. In that second the child had swiftly seized a stone, and so she crushed most of the bee, leaving it enough life to let it feel the agony of death. She flung down the body of the wild cat, and ran on for a few steps, with a laugh on her red mouth. Then she stopped again where a nest was built in a bush with very dark leaves and little white globes of flowers. In the nest were three young birds: two of these she cast to the ground and killed at once: she held the third in her small hot hands for a second, and a kind of frenzy came on her, and she made her firm teeth meet in its neck. For a little while she stood shuddering, and then she passed onwards, but more slowly. Slowly she came through the forest in her fairness and cruelty, caring nothing for her own beauty, and knowing nothing better than her cruelty. And it chanced that she came to the place where the minstrel sat in pleasant shade on a mossy curve of a tree’s root. In his hands was his lyre, and music came from it like falling water. The child crept into the brushwood, and hid herself, and listened. And the minstrel sang: Far away is the land where all things go, The rest of the winds that have ceased to blow, The peace of the rose whose leaves lie low, Scattered and dead, where roses grow. Far away! far away! There the dead bird takes a song again, And the steed has rest from the spur and rein, And the dead man learns that all were vain-- All the old struggles, and joys, and pain. Far away! far away! And the light on their eyes is a wondrous light, Where there is not day and there is not night, Where the fallen star once more grows bright That fell into darkness out of the height-- Far away! far away! Let me win there ere the break of day, Ere the first faint light o’er the hills grows grey, I am tired of my work and tired of my play, And I’ll make better songs in the land far away,-- Far away! far away!