Elle and the Moon

Elle sat with little folded hands

and looked out on the empty lands.
She watched the Sun turn every shade
and then burn low and gently fade.
The Moon rose bright, but upside-down,
and looked upon her with a frown.
"You are too little a girl," said he,
"to be out at night on the grassy sea,
like a primrose lost among the weeds,
but oh! what are those shining beads
threaded upon your soft eyelashes
and falling onto your pretty sashes?"
"Tears," she said, "but leave me be,
I do not wish for company."
"Oh," he remarked, with old eyes blinking
surrounded by hundreds of stars winking,
"you cannot be quite on your own,
my course won't change for you alone."
She made no answer to him, but she
continued sobbing there quietly.
"My dear," he said, "weep if you must
over bitter loss or deeds unjust,
but I must on my night-course pass
over you sitting there in the grass."
She kept in sorrow with head hung low
and he turned his frowning face to go.
Then drawing down to the little miss,
he there bestowed a gentle kiss
upon her cheek which still was wet
from tears that she was shedding yet.
She then looked up into the lamp
that was his face, her eyes still damp,
and saw, where once a frown had been,
the crease of a kindly smile begin.
She stood then drying her bleary eyes
as he made his way across the skies.