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| MOON FOLLY by Fannie Sterns Davis
I WILL go up the mountain after the Moon: |
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| She is caught in a dead fir-tree. |
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| Like a great pale apple of silver and pearl, |
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| Like a great pale apple is she. |
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| I will leap and will clasp her in quick cold hands |
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| And carry her home in my sack. |
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| I will set her down safe on the oaken bench |
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| That stands at the chimney-back. |
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| And then I will sit by the fire all night, |
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| And sit by the fire all day. |
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| I will gnaw at the Moon to my heart’s delight, |
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| Till I gnaw her slowly away. |
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| And while I grow mad with the Moon’s cold taste, |
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| The World may beat on my door, |
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| Crying “Come out!” and crying “Make haste! |
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| And give us the Moon once more!” |
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| But I will not answer them ever at all; |
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| I will laugh, as I count and hide |
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| The great black beautiful seeds of the Moon |
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| In a flower-pot deep and wide. |
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| Then I will lie down and go fast asleep, |
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| Drunken with flame and aswoon. |
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| But the seeds will sprout, and the seeds will leap: |
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| The subtle swift seeds of the Moon. |
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| And some day, all of the world that beats |
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| And cries at my door, shall see |
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| A thousand moon-leaves sprout from my thatch |
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| On a marvellous white Moon-tree! |
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| Then each shall have moons to his heart’s desire: |
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| Apples of silver and pearl: |
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| Apples of orange and copper fire, |
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| Setting his five wits aswirl. |
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| And then they will thank me, who mock me now: |
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| “Wanting the Moon is he!” |
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| Oh, I’m off to the mountain after the Moon, |
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| Ere she falls from the dead fir-tree! |
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