Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 10/The moon's wanderings

by Margaret Swayne

THE MOON’S WANDERINGS.

(FROM THE GERMAN.)

I.

"The keeper is gone to the feast to-night,"
⁠Is the whispering poacher's call;
His wife and his child are sleeping: bright
⁠Shines the moon on the chamber wall.

 

II.

As she shone on the palely glimm’ring bed,
⁠The child grasp'd his mother's warm hand,—
"O mother! why tarries father so long?
⁠I fear, for 'tis lone o'er the land."

 

III.

"Oh! look not into the moonlight, my child,
⁠Oh! close fast those little tired eyes;
The moon is bright, but the night it is long,
⁠Sleep on till to-morrow's sun rise."

 

IV.

Then the moon shone bright on the father's gun:
⁠"Ah! did you not hear that strange shot?
I fear me, and tremble, and cannot rest,
⁠For my father's gun it was not."

 

V.

"Child!" cried the mother, "it is but a dream,
⁠Look not in the moonlight again;
When father returns with the morning's beam,
⁠You'll know that your dreams are all vain."

 

VI.

Then the moon shone clear on the father's head,
⁠As his picture hung in the light;
His child started up, with a sudden cry,
⁠"Mother! why is his face so white?"

 

VII.

And ere the mother awoke from her sleep,
⁠Or ere she had left her lone bed,
And while she was wond’ring why he had stay’d,
⁠They had brought him home to her dead.

Margaret Swayne.