The inscription on the “Wisdom Looking-Glass”; the discovery by the children that the self-limitation of their little wishes was necessary not only to their own happiness, but to the harmony of the whole world; the development of the same idea in the passages leading up to the song--_What does it take to make a rose?_--where a _divine_ act of loving self-limitation, an eternal self-sacrifice, an everlasting passion of the Godhead, such as perhaps was shadowed forth on Calvary, is found to be at the heart of the Universe, and to be--as it were--the highest aspect of the Paradox aforesaid, the living secret and price of our very existence; these things are only one twisted strand of the ‘shot silk’ out of which the two tales are woven. It is no new wisdom to regard these things through the eyes of little children; and I know--however insignificant they may be to others--these two tales contain as deep and true things as I, personally, have the power to express. I hope, therefore, that I may be pardoned, in these hurried days, for pointing out that the two poems are not to be taken merely as fairy-tales, but as an attempt to follow the careless and happy feet of childhood back into the kingdom of those dreams which, as we said above, are the sole reality worth living and dying for; those beautiful dreams, or those fantastic jests--if any care to call them so--for which mankind has endured so many triumphant martyrdoms that even amidst the rush and roar of modern materialism they cannot be quite forgotten. ALFRED NOYES. PERSONS OF THE TALE OURSELVES. THE TALL THIN MAN. THE DWARF BEHIND THE TWISTED PEAR-TREE. CREEPING SIN. THE MAD MOONSHEE. THE NAMELESS ONE. Pirates, Mandarins, Bonzes, Priests, Jugglers, Merchants, Ghastroi, Weirdrians, etc. PRELUDE You that have known the wonder zone Of islands far away; You that have heard the dinky bird And roamed in rich Cathay; You that have sailed o’er unknown seas To woods of Amfalula trees Where craggy dragons play: Oh, girl or woman, boy or man, You’ve plucked the Flower of Old Japan! Do you remember the blue stream; The bridge of pale bamboo; The path that seemed a twisted dream Where everything came true; The purple cherry-trees; the house With jutting eaves below the boughs; The mandarins in blue, With tiny, tapping, tilted toes, And curious curved mustachios? _The road to Old Japan!_ you cry, _And is it far or near?_ Some never find it till they die; Some find it everywhere; The road where restful Time forgets His weary thoughts and wild regrets And calls the golden year Back in a fairy dream to smile On young and old a little while.