to be a child

Know you what it is to be a child?
It is to be something very different from the man of today.
It is to have a spirit yet streaming from the waters of baptism;
it is to believe in love,
to believe in loveliness,
to believe in belief;
it is to be so little that the elves can reach to whisper in your ear;
it is to turn pumpkins into coaches,
and mice into horses,
lowness into loftiness,
and nothing into everything,
for each child has its fairy godmother in its own soul.

Francis Thompson (1859-1907)