The Wind and the Moon

 by George Macdonald
Said the Wind to the Moon,
"I will blow you out!
You stare In the air
As if crying," Beware,
"Always looking what I am about.
I hate to be watched; "I will blow you out!
"The Wind blew hard, and out went the Moon.
So deep
On a heap
Of clouds to sleep,
Down lay the Wind, and slumbered soon,
Muttering low "I've done for that Moon"
He turned in his bed; she was there again!
On high
In the sky
With her one ghost-eye,
The Moon shone white and alive and plain;
Said the Wind, " I will blow you out again!"

The wind blew hard, and the moon grew slim,
"With my sledge
And my wedge
I have knocked off her edge!
I will blow, said the Wind, "right fierce and grim,
And the creature will soon be slimmer than slim!"
He blew, and he blew, and she thinned to a thread.
"One puff
More's enough
To blow her to snuff!
One good puff more where the last was bred,
And glimmer, glimmer, glum will go that thread"
He blew a great blast, and the thread was gone,
In the air
Nowhere
Was that moonbeam bare;
Larger and clearer the shy stars shone;
Sure and certain the Moon was gone!
The wind he took to his revels once more;
On down
And in town,
A merry-mad clown,
He leaped and holloed with whistle and roar
When there was that glimmering thread once more!

He flew in a rage - he danced and he blew;
But in vain
Was the pain
Of his bursting brain;
For still the Moon-scrap the broader grew,
The more that he swelled his big cheeks and blew,
Slowly she grew - till she filled the night,
And shone
On her throne
In the sky alone,
A matchless, wonderful, silvery light,
Radiant and lovely, queen of the night.
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