Lullaby Town

There's a quaint little place they call Lullaby Town —
It's just back of those bills where the sunsets go down.
Its streets are of silver, its buildings of gold,
And its palaces dazzling things to behold;
There are dozens of spires, housing musical chimes;
Its people are folk from the Nursery Rimes,
And at night it's alight, like a garden of gleams,
With fairies, who bring the most wonderful dreams.

The Sandman is Mayor, and be rules like a King.
The climate's so balmy that, always, it's spring,
And it's never too cold, and it's never too hot,
And I'm told that there's nowhere a prettier spot;
All in and about it are giant old trees,
Filled with radiant birds that will sing when you please,
But the strange thing about it-this secret, pray, keep —
Is, it never awakes till the world is asleep.

So when night settles down, all its lights snap aglow,
And its streets fill with people who dance to and fro.
Mother Goose, Old King Cole and his fiddlers three,
Miss Moffat, Jack Sprat and his wife, scamper free,
With a whole host of others, a boisterous crew,
Not forgetting the Old Lady Who Lived in a Shoe
And her troublesome brood who, with brownie and sprite,
Go trooping the streets, a bewildering sight.

There's a peddler who carries, strapped high on his back,
A bundle. Now, guess what he has in that pack.
There's a crowd all about him a-buying his wares,
And they're grabbing his goods up in threes and in pairs.
No, he's not peddling jams nor delectable creams.
Would you know what he's selling? just wonderful dreams!

There are dreams for a penny and dreams that cost two;
And there's no two alike, and they're sure to come true;
And the buyers fare off with a toss of the bead,
And they visit the Sandman, then hide them to bed;
For there's nothing to do in this land of Bo-Peep,
But to frolic and sing and then go off to sleep!

- John Irving Diller

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