A NEW thing came and they could not see,
A new wind blew and they would not feel it.
Out of a world of wizardry,
With a scent picked up in Araby,
And a charm for the hurried mind to heal it,
And a song blown west from Arcady,
A new wind blew and they would not feel it.
Their watchers looked for a wind to blow;
And the new wind sang, and they could not hear it.
It slipped at dusk by the mean dull row
Of their narrow houses, from fields of snow
In a magical land: they were very near it
For wonderful moments, and did not know.
The new wind sang and they could not hear it.
If they had heard it, who could not hear,
If they had learned it, who would not listen,
They had seen lost fairyland near, so near,
And the tarns of elf-land shimmering clear;
They had seen those pinnacles beckon and glisten
That now will never be seen by them here;
If they had heard, but they would not listen.