THE DREAM - CHILD'S
INVITATION The one and only Alfred
Noyes
Once upon a time!--Ah,
now the light is burning dimly, Peterkin
is here again : he wants another tale! Don't
you hear him whispering - The wind is in the
chimley, The ottoman's a treasure ship,
we'll all set sail? All set sail? No,
the wind is very loud to-night : The
darkness on the waters is much deeper than of
yore. Yet I wonder--hark, he whispers--if
the little streets are still as bright In
old Japan, in old Japan, that happy haunted
shore. I
wonder--hush, he whispers--if perhaps the world
will wake again, When Christmas brings the
stories back from where the skies are blue,
Where clouds are scattering diamonds down on every
cottage window-pane, And every boy's a
fairy prince, and every tale is
true.
There the sword Excalibur is
thrust into the dragon's throat, Evil
there is evil, black is black, and white is white
: There the child triumphant hurls the
villain spluttering into the moat; There
the captured princess only waits the peerless
knight.
Fairyland is gleaming there
beyond the Sherwood Forest trees, There
the City of the Clouds has anchored on the
plain All her misty vistas and slumber-rosy
palaces (Shall we not, ah, shall we
not, wander there
again?)
"Happy ever after" there, the
lights of home a welcome fling Softly
thro' the darkness as the star that shone of
old, Softly over Bethlehem and o'er the
little cradled King Whom the sages
worshipped with their frankincense and
gold.
Once upon a
time--perhaps a hundred thousand years
ago-- Whisper to me, Peterkin, I have
forgotten when! Once upon a time there was a
way, a way we used to know For stealing
off at twilight from the weary ways of
men.
Whisper it, O whisper it--the
way, the way is all I need! All the heart
and will are here and all the deep
desire! Once upon a time--ah, now the
light is drawing near indeed, I see the
fairy faces flush to roses round the
fire.
Once upon a time--the
little lips are on my cheek again, Little
fairy fingers clasped and clinging draw me
nigh, Dreams, no more than dreams, but they
unloose the weary prisoner's chain And
lead him from his dungeon! "What's a thousand
years?" they cry.
A
thousand years, a thousand years, a little drifting
dream ago, All of us were hunting with a
band of merry men, The skies were blue, the
boughs were green, the clouds were crisping isles
of snow ... ... So Robin blew his
bugle, and the Now became the
Then.
Posted 17:44
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