The Good Folk

This world is not your world alone,

But others walk it too,

Exclaiming, as they do,

In voices ever-new;

Your house is not a place you own,

But borrowed from the men

Who whisper in the glen

“When comes our time again?”

Queer men they are, and strangely small,

And all antiquely clad

In clothes you never had,

And seldom are they sad –

For time is theirs, their bonded thrall,

Their servant and their fool;

Dark woods are theirs to rule,

Where leaves are lush and cool;

And well they know the way to wait,

Until the coming hour

When all their storied power

Shall rise again, and flower,

And those they love and those they hate

Will writhe in joy and pain,

And marvel and complain:

“The Good Folk live again!”