THE DOG AND THE PATCH OF MOONSHINE
A HARVEST moon! Was ever seen
A harvest moon so bright?
The crowded ivy, darkly green,
Was touched with primrose white.
The quiet skies uncovered lay,
And, far as you could see,
The night was like a ghostly day
On road, and field, and tree.
Silence and light! Will nothing speak
In the light and silence wide?
O lady moon, your other cheek
Why do you always hide?
Sweet on the air was the jessamine,
As I stood at my gate;
Yet I shuddered, and thought, “I will go in,—
The silence is too great!”
I looked to where the hill-tops showed
Behind the poplars green,
When there came trotting down the road
A dog—the dog was lean;
And you could tell, as he came by,
He had no friend on earth,
Nobody in whose partial eye
He was of any worth.
His tail hung down; his matted hair
Was like a worn-out thatch;
This dog came trotting up to where
The moonlight made a patch,
Falling between two poplar-trees;
And there the dog turned round,
Round, and round, by slow degrees—
Then crouched upon the ground.
And I brought forth some broken food,
And cried, “Old dog, get up!
That patch of moonlight may be good,
But on it you cannot sup.”
He came away—came many a pace,
And took what I bestowed;
Then, being refreshed, snuffed all the place,
And up and down the road.
I showed him where the thick grass grew
Against a sheltering wall;
I said, “Here is a bed for you,
With half-a-house and all.”
But two hours after—I kept watch
From my bedroom window-pane—
I saw that on that moony patch
He had lain down again!
And in the morning he was gone.—
What charm was it he found
In sleeping where the moonlight shone
In a patch upon the ground?
He might have slept where he had his bone,
Where the moon shone all around!
I am a superstitious man,
And it is my delight
To think there was a magic plan,
A meaning, in that night!
That magic dog that lay i’ the moon,
He will come back to me,
A fairy princess bright and boon,
Whom I that night set free!
There was a mystery in the air,
And in the primrose light;
The silence seemed to say, “Prepare!
It shall be done to-night!”
And could that mystery only mean
A dog that was not fat?
I saw a glint of elfin green
In the moonshine where he sat—
I heard the midnight clocks all round,
In distant falls and swells—
I heard a little silver sound,
The clink of elfin bells—
But will my princess be unbound,
If anybody tells?