there used to be a little girl who does not come here any more. she is not dead, for when certain things happen, she stirs slightly where she is, perhaps deep within the air. when the sun falls in a particular way, when graham griddle cakes are baking, when the sky laughs sudden blue after a storm, or the town clock points in its clearest you-will-be-late way at nine in the morning, when the moonlight is on the midnight and nothing moves—then, somewhere beyond sealed doors, the little girl says something, and it is plain that she is here all the time.

you little child who never have died, in these stories i am trying to tell you that now i come near to understanding you. i see you still, with your over-long hair and your over-much chattering, your naughtiness and your dreams. i know the qualities that made you disagreeable and those that made you dear, and i look on you somewhat as spirit looks on spirit, understanding from within. i wish that we could live it again, you and i—not all of it, by any means, and not for a serious business; but now and then, for a joy and for an idleness. and this book is a way of trying to do it over again, together.

will you care to come from the quiet where you are, near to me and yet remote? i think that you will come, for you were wont untiringly to wonder about me. and now here i am, come true, so faintly like her whom you dreamed, yet so like you yourself, your child, fruit of your spirit, you little shadowy mother....

xii if only words were moments

and i knew where they fly,

i’d make a tale of time itself

to tell you by and bye.

if only words were fathoms

that let us by for pearls,

i’d make a story ocean-strange

for little boys and girls.

but words are only shadow things.

i summon all i may.

oh, see—they try to spell out life!

let’s act it, like a play.