of the ice of either pole, and Anger with the swift flight of the
dragonfly in summer having burning eyes. I will not forgive these
gods."

But the poet said:

"Canst thou be angry with these beautiful white bones?" And I looked
long at those curved and beautiful bones that were no longer able to
hurt the smallest creature in all the worlds that they had made. And I
thought long of the evil that they had done, and also of the good. But
when I thought of Their great hands coming red and wet from battles to
make a primrose for a child to pick, then I forgave the gods.

And a gentle rain came falling out of heaven and stilled the restless
sand, and a soft green moss grew suddenly and covered the bones till
they looked like strange green hills, and I heard a cry and awoke and
found that I had dreamed, and looking out of my house into the street I
found that a flash of lightning had killed a child. Then I knew that
the gods still lived.


_II_

I lay asleep in the poppy fields of the gods in the valley of Alderon,
where the gods come by night to meet together in council when the moon
is low. And I dreamed that this was the Secret.

Fate and Chance had played their game and ended, and all was over, all
the hopes and tears, regrets, desires and sorrows, things that men wept
for and unremembered things, and kingdoms and little gardens and the