Eleanor Farjeon on going bedward

When all the fairy tales are told

And young and old go bed ward,

Oh, what a debt both young and old

For ever owe you, Edward.

In darkness lit by dreams come true

The years revive their embers

And what the child’s eye saw, through you

The ageing eye remembers.

The phoenixes of infant joy

And woe and all-desiring

Which time endeavours to destroy, 

Arise from their first firing,

Reborn in images onceborn

Ere the dull brain retarded,

Picturing still our earliest morn

When words were unregarded.

So with my Picture book I lie

Among the old ones bedward

Knowing the unpaid debt which I 

For ever owe you, Edward.

Eleanor Farjeon

From ‘The Little Bookroom’

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Tags: bedward, children's poetry, eleanor farjeon, fairy tales, going to bed, picture books, poetry, quotes, reading, young and old