Echoes

On heights of mountains all clad in snow,
Towering over valleys green below-
In rushing light glinting on newborn streams,
Weaving the warp and weft of sudden dreams-
In sky unstained by cloud or tempest's storming-
On slopes shining with summer's warming-
Another world touches ours, and songs are swarming.

A glimpse of a face in the leaves of a tree,
All tangled hair and wood-nymph mystery-
A flicker of a tune in midsummer's reaches,
The moon full, the stars blooming, ripe silver peaches-
A trace of a fragrance of wildflowers,
Offered to our poor world, an otherwhen's dowers-
Seductive signs, speaking of magic, of elfin powers.

Music that haunts the mind through the maze of dreams,
Dancing, teasing, promising nothing that is what it seems-
A melody so lovely that we awaken with tears in our eyes,
So beautiful, and yet how quickly away it flies-
Tunes that melt away under our world's sun like snow,
Too pristine and pure to survive mortality so-
Where do they come from? Where do they go?

Creations of our own sleep-wildered brains,
Thrown against the mind's walls and leaving sticky stains?
Fragments of the world lost when childhood dies,
So that we leave behind the laughter, the lullabies?
Or echoes of a world long lost to men,
That our mistakes will not permit us to find again?
How and why should we search for what has been?

Look for it when you gaze into the heart of fires,
Or upon the endless mountains' soaring spires.
Listen for it when you open your eyes in the morning,
And permit not the dream-tunes to die a-borning.
Look for it when the rain and the snow fly.
Look for it when you see something too lovely to pass by.
Look for it without asking yourself why.

For it was the terror that drove it away, long ago,
And left us to wander forlorn in reality's snow.
If you are lucky enough to find the fairy dancers,
Do not look also to find there the answers.
Go among them, and accept whatever willingly-offered gift
Will fill your heart, and your spirits lift
When you wake to find them gone into the world's rifts.