The Children in the Moon.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XX, Issue 2014, 7 January 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

The Children in the Moon.

Harken, child, unto a story, For the moon is in the sky, And across her shield of silver See two tiny cloudlets fly. Watch them closely, mark them sharply, As across the light they pass : Seem they not to have the figures Of a little lad and lass! See, my child, across the shoulders Lies a Mttle pole, and lo I Yonder speck is just the bucket Swinging softly to aud fro. It is said these little children, Many and many a summer night, To a little well, far northward, Wandered in the still moonlight. To the wayside well they trotted, Filled their little buckets there And the moon-man looking downward, Saw how beautiful they were. Quoth the man : “ How vexed and sulky Looks the little rosy boy I But the little handsome maiden Trips behind him fall of joy, ** To the well behind the hedge-row Trot the little lad and maiden ; From the well behind the hedge-row How the little pail is laden. “ How they please me I how they tempt me 1 Shall I snatch them up to-night ? Snatch them, set them here forever, In the middle of my light 1 k Children, ay, and children’s children, Shoald behold.my babes on high ; And my babes should smile forever, Calling others to the sky 1” Thai the philosophic moon-man Mattered many years ago ; Bet the babes with pail and bucket To delight the folks below. Never is the bucket empty; Never are the children old ? Ever when the moon is shining We the children may behold. Ever young and ever little, Ever sweet and ever fair ? When thou art a man, my darling, Still the children will be there. Ever young and ever little. They will smile when thou art old ; When thy locks are thin and silver, Theirs will silll be shining gold. They will haunt thee from their heaven, Softly beckoning down the gloom ; (Smiling in eternal sweetness On thy cradle, on thy tomb.