158 BENEDICITE 



" In olde dayes 



All was this lond fulfilled of faerie ; 



The Elf-Queene with hire jolie company 



Daunsed full oft in many a grene mede . . . 



But now can no man see non elves mo. 



For now the grete charite and prayers 



Of limitours and other holy freres . . 



This maketh that there ben no faeries. 



For there as wont to walken was an elf, 



There walketh now the limitour himself . . . 



In every bush, and under every tree, 



There is none other incubus but he." 



They lead their revelry with childish boldness into 

 the holy precincts of church and churchyard ; they 

 clamber about the sacred edifice to peep through 

 keyholes and to peer through richly obscure windows 

 into the lonely mystery within. What should it be 

 the great, quiet House where no man lives ; with 

 the lofty tower wherein no man keeps watch ? 

 About it, as if moored to some old rock, lie the 

 light skiffs of those who have made their last port. 

 The dead, the little people know ; for there were 

 always dead. Time, too, they know, and the grind- 

 ing of the wheels in the clock-tower affrights them 

 not ; there was always Time. But the sudden 

 clangour of the bells is a thing of dread ; their iron 

 tongues are tongues of terror. They are as a voice 

 from the void, a menace in a tongue to them 

 unknown, unlearnable. Time was men took their 

 days in peace, and questioned not of the morrow. 

 The bright things of earth were good to them the 

 height of the hill, the breadth of the plain, the river 

 winding in the plain. There was fellowship between 

 them when as yet he had not sought the height 



