But when I read of
those pure, half-pagan immortals in the dance of the _Sluaige Shee_
(the Fairy Hosts) I could not help thinking that Greenwich Village
might well adopt certain passages as fitting texts and interpretations
of themselves and their own lives--"The lovers of gaiety and peace,
long defrauded."
The Shee, as they dance, sing to the old grey world-dwellers,--or
Stevens says they do, and I for one believe he knows all there is to
know about it ('tis a Leprechaun he has for a friend):
"Come to us, ye who do not know where ye are--ye who live
among strangers in the houses of dismay and
self-righteousness. Poor, awkward ones! How bewildered and
be-devilled ye go!... In what prisons are ye flung? To what
lowliness are ye bowed? How are ye ground between the laws
and the customs? Come away! For the dance has begun lightly,
the wind is sounding over the hill...."
CHAPTER IX
_And Then More Villagers_
... A meeting place for the few who are struggling ever and
ever for an art that will be truly American.
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