Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ONCE ON A TIME, by BERTON BRALEY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ONCE ON A TIME, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Once on a time,' was a magical phrase
Last Line: Once on a time!
Subject(s): Fairy Tales


"Once on a Time," was a magical phrase
Thrilling with promise of marvelous stories,
Tales of the pixies and nixies and fays,
Princes and fairyland kings in their glories;
I was a boy and these chronicles, all of them,
Bore me away to a mythical clime
Ruled by strange wizards, and I was in thrall of them
Once on a Time.

Once on a Time I was slender and young,
Love was enchantment and life was a dance,
Youth was but coin to be squandered and flung,
Days were all sunshine and nights were Romance;
Now when I think of those days and the fun of them,
When I see youngsters still flush in their prime,
I can but sigh, "Well, at least I was one of them
Once on a Time!"

Once on a Time I had wonderful dreams
Made up of rainbows that glowed in the distance,
Once I sought Life, but to-day, so it seems,
All I have won to is merely Existence.
This is the fruit of the blithe and the merry tales,
—Middle-aged plodding through workaday grime—
Still, thank the Lord, I believed in the fairy-tales
Once on a Time!





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