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?
[Illustration]