`"The flowers are awake and play with the
`The robins, they sing in the cherry-trees,
`For he's merry and wide awake, of course,
`He is prancing about on his rocking-horse,
"I'll run through the town myself," said he,
`Wee Willie Winkie--no shoes on his feet,
`No hat on his head--ran down the street,
`"Are your babies asleep in their cradles now?
`Do your lilies asleep in the night-wind blow?
`Little fat, rosy boy, ran thro' the town,
`"Are the robins and babies and rosies all
`At the window-panes where the babies napped,
`For the white-haired babies, the birds and
`Who had slept and dreamed through the eve-
`And everything that was little and sweet
`Came trooping out on the moonlit street,
`And through the streets of the silent town
`Poor little wight, quite pale with dread,
`"The foe, they are riding upon the town!"
`"Queer sights I have seen," quoth slowly the
`"But I never have seen, by my signet-ring,
`That the whole of the town you wake and stir
`That the babies, and birds, and lambs, and all,
`From their cradles into the street you call,
`"And you've waked the Prince," halloed the
`And in at his window the great moon shone
`And weep not, my rose and my lily and dove,
`"And the worst of the dreams has come to me
Then the loveliest dream in the poppy fleet,
That will fill the room like a rose with sweet,
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Once Upon a Time and Other Child-Verses, by Mary E. Wilkins