Once Upon A Time

Once Upon A Time was the third Tom Bombadil poem in Hobbit verse (fourth Tom poem if counting The Stone Troll) published in October 1965 within Winter's Tales for Children 1 and reprinted in The Young Magicians in 1969.

Once Upon A Time

 * Once upon a day on the fields of May
 * there was snow in summer where the blossom lay:
 * the buttercups tall sent up their light
 * in a stream of gold, and wide and white
 * there opened in the green-grass skies
 * the earth-stars with their steady eyes
 * watching the Sun climb up and down.
 * Goldberry was there with a wild-rose crown,
 * Goldberry was there in a lady-smock
 * blowing away a dandelion clock,
 * stooping over a lily-pool
 * and twiddling the water green and cool
 * to see it sparkle round her hand:
 * once upon a time in elvish land.


 * Once upon a night in the cockshut light
 * the grass was grey but the dew was white;
 * the shadows were dark, and the Sun was gone,
 * the earth-stars shut, but the high stars shone,
 * one to another winking their eyes
 * as they waited for the Moon to rise.
 * Up he came, and on leaf and grass
 * his white beams turned to twinkling glass,
 * and silver dripped from stem and stalk
 * down to where the lintips walk
 * through the grass-forests gathering dew.
 * Tom was there without boot or shoe,
 * with moonshine wetting his big, brown toes:
 * once upon a time, the story goes.


 * Once upon a moon on the brink of June
 * a-dewing the lintips went too soon.
 * Tom stopped and listened, and down he knelt:
 * Ha! little lads! So it was you I smelt?
 * What a mousy smell! Well, the dew is sweet,
 * so drink it up, but mind my feet!';
 * The lintips laughed and stole away,
 * but old Tom said: 'I wish they'd stay
 * The only things that won't talk to me
 * say what they do or what they be.
 * I wonder what they have got to hide?
 * Down from the Moon maybe they slide,
 * or come in star-winks, I don't know':
 * Once upon a time and long ago.