in the valley beyond sidono there lies a garden of poppies, and where the poppies' heads are all a-swing with summer breezes that go up the valley there lies a path well strewn with ocean shells. over sidono's summit the birds come streaming to the lake that lies in the valley of the garden, and behind them rises the sun sending sidono's shadow as far as the edge of the lake. and down the path of many ocean shells when they begin to gleam in the sun, every morning walks an aged man clad in a silken robe with strange devices woven. a little temple where the old man lives stands at the edge of the path. none worship there, for zornadhu, the old prophet, hath forsaken men to walk among his poppies.
for zornadhu hath failed to understand the purport of kings and cities and the moving up and down of many people to the tune of the clinking of gold. therefore hath zornadhu gone far away from the sound of cities and from those that are ensnared thereby, and beyond sidono's mountain hath come to rest where there are neither kings nor armies nor bartering for gold, but only the heads of the poppies that sway in the wind together and the birds that fly from sidono to the lake, and then the sunrise over sidono's summit; and afterwards the flight of birds out of the lake and over sidono again, and sunset behind the valley, and high over lake and garden the stars that know not cities. there zornadhu lives in his garden of poppies with sidono standing between him and the whole world of men; and when the wind blowing athwart the valley sways the heads of the tall poppies against the temple wall, the old prophet says: "the flowers are all praying, and lo! they be nearer to the gods than men."
but the heralds of the king coming after many days of travel to sidono perceived the garden valley. by the lake they saw the poppy garden gleaming round and small like a sunrise over water on a misty morning seen by some shepherd from the hills. and descending the bare mountain for three days they came to the gaunt pines, and ever between the tall trunks came the glare of the poppies that shone from the garden valley. for a whole day they travelled through the pines. that night a cold wind came up the garden valley crying against the poppies. low in his temple, with a song of exceeding grief, zornadhu in the morning made a dirge for the passing of poppies, because in the night time there had fallen petals that might not return or ever come again into the garden valley. outside the temple on the path of ocean shells the heralds halted, and read the names and honours of the king; and from the temple came the voice of zornadhu still singing his lament. but they took him from his garden because of the king's command, and down his gleaming path of ocean shells and away up sidono, and left the temple empty with none to lament when silken poppies died. and the will of the wind of the autumn was wrought upon the poppies, and the heads of the poppies that rose from the earth went down to the earth again, as the plume of a warrior smitten in a heathen fight far away, where there are none to lament him. thus out of his land of flowers went zornadhu and came perforce into the lands of men, and saw cities, and in the city's midst stood up before the king.
and the king said:
"zornadhu, what of the journey of the king and of the princes and the people that shall meet me?"
zornadhu answered:
"i know nought of kings, but in the night time the poppy made his journey a little before dawn. thereafter the wildfowl came as is their wont over sidono's summit, and the sun rising behind them gleamed upon sidono, and all the flowers of the lake awoke. and the bee passing up and down the garden went droning to other poppies, and the flowers of the lake, they that had known the poppy, knew him no more. and the sun's rays slanting from sidono's crest lit still a garden valley where one poppy waved his petals to the dawn no more. and i, o king, that down a path of gleaming ocean shells walk in the morning, found not, nor have since found, that poppy again, that hath gone on the journey whence there is not returning, out of my garden valley. and i, o king, made a dirge to cry beyond that valley and the poppies bowed their heads; but there is no cry nor no lament that may adjure the life to return again to a flower that grew in a garden once and hereafter is not.
"unto what place the lives of poppies have gone no man shall truly say. sure it is that to that place are only outward tracks. only it may be that when a man dreams at evening in a garden where heavily the scent of poppies hangs in the air, when the winds have sunk, and far away the sound of a lute is heard on lonely hills, as he dreams of silken-scarlet poppies that once were a-swing together in the gardens of his youth, the lives of those old lost poppies shall return, living again in his dream. *so there may dream the gods.* and through the dreams of some divinity reclining in tinted fields above the morning we may haply pass again, although our bodies have long swirled up and down the world with other dust. in these strange dreams our lives may be again, all in the centre of our hopes, rejoicings and laments, until above the morning the gods wake to go about their work, haply to remember still their idle dreams, haply to dream them all again in the stillness when shines the starlight of the gods."
