Page:Poems that every child should know (ed. Burt, 1904).djvu/150

112 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 dim.

"With my sledge,

And my wedge,

I have knocked off her edge!

If only I blow right fierce and grim,

The creature will soon be dimmer than dim."

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 the thread."

He blew a great blast, and the thread was gone

In the air

Nowhere

Was a moonbeam bare;

Far off and harmless the shy stars shone—

Sure and certain the Moon was gone!

The Wind he took to his revels once more;

On down,

In town,

Like a merry-mad clown,

He leaped and hallooed with whistle and roar—

"What's that?" The glimmering thread once more!