THE CHANGELINGS
Out on the road to Fairyland where the dreaming children go, There's a little inn at the Sign of the Rose, that all the fairies know, For Titania lodged in that tavern once, and betwixt the night and the day The children that crowded about her there, she stole their hearts away!
Peaseblossom, Moth and Mustardseed, Agate and Airymouse too, Once were children that laughed and played as children always do, But when Titania kissed their lips, and crowned them with daffodil gold They never forgot what she whispered them, they never knew how to grow old!
Mothers that wonder why little lads forget their homely ways, And little maids put their dolls aside and take to acting plays, Ah, let them be kings and queens awhile, for there's nothing sad or mean In their innocent thought, and their crowns were wrought by the touch o' the Fairy Queen!
Close to the heart o' the world they come, the children who know the way To the little low gateway under the rose, where 't is neither night nor day. They see what others can never guess, they hear what we cannot hear, And the loathly dragons that waste our life they never learn to fear.
The little inn at the Sign of the Rose,—ah, who can forget the place Where Titania danced with the children small and lent them her elfin grace? And wherever they go and whatever they do in the years that turn them gray They never forget the charm she said when she stole their hearts away!