O little girl who used to be,

Come down the Old World road with me,

And watch the galleons leaping home

Deep-laden, through the rainbow foam,

And the far-glimmering lances reel

Where clashes battle-axe on steel,

When the long shouts of triumph ring

Around the banner of the King!

To elfin harps those minstrels rime

Who live in Once-upon-a-Time!

In that far land of Used-to-Be,

Strange folk were known to you and me,—

Mowgli and Puck, and all their kin,

Launcelot, and Huckleberry Finn,

Wise Talleyrand, brave Ivanhoe,

Juliet, and Lear, and Prospero,

Alleyne and his White Company,

Arid trooping folk of Faerie!

People of every race and clime

Are found in Once-upon-a-Time!

And it those days that used to be

The gypsy wind that raced the sea

Came singing of enchanted lands,

Of sapphire waves on golden sands,

Of wind-borne fleets that race the swallow,

Of Squirrel-fairy in her hollow,

Of brooklets full of scattered stars,

And odorous herbs by pasture-bars

Where to the cow-bells' tinkling chime

Come dreams of Once-upon-a-Time!

O little girl who used to be,

The days are long in Faerie,—

Their garnered sunshine's wealth of gold

No royal treasure-vault may hold.

And now, as if our earth possessed

Alchemy's fabled Alkahest,

Our harbors blaze with jewelled light,

Our air-ships wing their circling flight,

And we ourselves are in the rime

That sings of Once-upon-a-Time!