all fall down

The old song. Who does not know it? Who is yet so young, so green, so innocent, as not to have heard that cheery air — so appealing, so melodious, so common that the children sing it in the street? All fall down, they sing, holding hands, skipping in a ring. Then they fall down.

We watch them, we smile and applaud: they have learned what we have taught. They laugh, they spring back up and enact their dance again, this time for us as much as themselves. And this charms us even more.

Our hair should stand on end. We should rush to them, and catch them up, and run with them, as fast and as far as we can, before they are consumed.

But we cannot; or we will not; in any case we do not.

And they are consumed before our eyes.