Chapter XXXIX.
HOW YWAIN BEHELD A GAME OF CHILDREN AND HEARD THEIR SINGING.

Now Ywain stood still to see the crowd departing, and of them which came near to him there were some which greeted him and some which looked sullenly upon him. And as he saw them he thought upon the fashion of this world, wherein all men are homeless: for though a man dwell where he will and see good days, yet everywhere he will be at strife with some, and belike with many. Then he thought to go to his own house, and he came there and entered into it: but when he was therein he looked about him doubtfully, for he could not tell if it should be still his own, or given to another.

So he stayed not there, but went forth again he knew not whither: for his wits wandered otherwhere, but his feet lightly found out the ways of his desire. And the time was the time of sunset, and there went a great thunder over the city, and a sudden rain; and when the rain ceased there was a light in the air and a marvellous clearness. And it seemed to Ywain as though that clearness was in his eyes also, and in his mind and in his heart: and he went wandering in joy. So he came to a gate of the city and marked it not, but passed through it: and beyond the gate he saw suddenly the High Steep before him, grey and green, and upon it was a company of children singing and making merry, for they had run forth after the ceasing of the rain. And there beyond them was the sea, shining like grey steel, and the trees were dark against it; and the sky was heavy above with bands of purple, but between the bands the colour of it was pale and cool, and like to the colour of green apples.

Then Ywain stood still to look upon the sea and the sky, and the children came round about him and looked also. And as they stood looking there passed a cloud over the Shepherdine Sands, and the cloud was drawn down upon the white water, and it was the last cloud of the storm going west before the wind. And the passing away of it was like the drawing of a curtain, for immediately there was light instead of darkness upon the Shepherdine Sands and upon all the region that was beyond. And in the light there was a land, as it were far off but exceeding clear: and upon the land was a steep and a city, and by seeming it was no strange city, for it was built and bulwarked after the very fashion of Paladore. Notwithstanding it was strange enough: for it was small and bright as a city that is painted in a book, and the light wherewith it shone was a light of dawn and not of sunset.

And as Ywain looked upon the city it seemed to him that the light was upon his own eyes also, and upon his mind and upon his heart, and he named the land aloud and called it Aladore. And the children that were beside him heard the word that he spoke, and immediately they broke into shouting after the manner of children, and ran busily from one to another among themselves: and Ywain perceived that they would play at a game together, and by seeming the game was called the game of Aladore. And at the first he marvelled, but afterwards he marvelled no more, for he remembered how that it was forbidden to speak that name in all the city, and how that the desire of children is ever to do and to say that which is forbidden them.

Then he went a little aside and stood within the gateway and looked forth to see the playing of that pastime. And he saw how the children departed them into two bands, which stood aline the one over against the other. And their pastime was the singing of a song: and they sang it as it were an antiphony, verse answering to verse, and they kept the time full orderly with their hands and with their feet. And the verses of the song were in number six, and the words of it were these—

Now these were all the verses which the children sang, but when they had sung them all, then they sang the last verse again and yet again. And as they sang they turned them about, and they went by two and by two along the edge of the green steep, after the manner of lovers or of friends which go together on pilgrimage: and when Ywain saw that his heart burned his eyes, for even in the playing of the children he beheld an image of his own life. But they went from him quickly, for they continued still in their singing and their marching, and they passed by a tower that was in the wall and Ywain saw them no more. But he heard their singing far off, when they were long gone from him, and at the last he knew not in truth whether he heard it or heard it not, but only he knew that the sound of it was still abiding with him.