Listen, your changeling children are swinging like monkeys,
Hand-over-hand through the leaves of the trees of the forest,
Hugging and kissing and swinging and laughing and singing
Wishes like wings as they flutter and float to the ground.
Feral and faery and wary, the wraiths of your children,
Glister and glisten high up in the skittering sunshine,
Fashioning songs in the swish of the teetering treetops,
Listen, O listen, the weald is awash with the sound.
Songs of the gods of the gongs in the words of the wicked,
Songs of the wrongs of the crocodile spawn of the devil,
Songs that are born in the terrible teeth of the butcher,
Listen, the music goes round and around and around.
Light-bringing Lucifer burns in the eyes of your children,
Satan the Star of the Morning embraces your children,
Darkness has stolen the flesh of your flesh, and your children,
Lost in the fell of the forest, will never be found.
-
Changelings
America's most
influential
journal of
religion and
public life Subscribe Latest Issue Support First Things
influential
journal of
religion and
public life Subscribe Latest Issue Support First Things