The Fairy Reel

by

Neil Gaiman

If I were young as once I was, and dreams

and death more distant then,

I wouldn't split my soul in two, and keep

half in the world of men,

So half of me would stay at home, and

strive for Faerie in vain,

While all the while my soul would stroll up

narrow path, down crooked lane,

And there would meet a fairy lass and

smile and bow with kisses three,

She'd pluck wild eagles from the air

and nail me to a lightning tree

And if my heart would run from her or

flee from her, be gone from her,

She'd wrap it in a nest of stars and then

she'd take it on with her

Until one day she'd tire of it, all bored

with it and done with it

She'd leave it by a burning brook, and off

brown boys would run with it.

They'd take it and have fun with it and

stretch it long and cruel and thin,

They'd slice it into four and then they'd

string with it a violin.

And every day and every night they'd

play upon my heart a song

So plaintitive and so wild and strange that

all who heard it danced along

And sang and whirled and sank and trod and

skipped and slipped and reeled and rolled

Until, with eyes as bright as coals, they'd

crumble into wheels of gold....

But I am younger no longer now, for sixty

years my heart's been gone

To play its dreadful music there, beyond

the valley of the sun.

I watch with envious eyes and mind, the

single-souled, who dare not feel

The wind that blows beyond the moon

who do not hear the Fairy Reel.

If you don't hear the Fairy Reel, they will

not pause to steal your breath.

When I was young I was a fool.

So wrap me up in dreams and death.