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MOON FOLLY
I WILL go up the mountain after the Moon: | |
| She is caught in a dead fir-tree. | |
| Like a great pale apple of silver and pearl, | |
| Like a great pale apple is she. | |
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| I will leap and will clasp her in quick cold hands | 5 |
| And carry her home in my sack. | |
| I will set her down safe on the oaken bench | |
| That stands at the chimney-back. | |
| And then I will sit by the fire all night, | |
| And sit by the fire all day. | 10 |
| I will gnaw at the Moon to my heart’s delight, | |
| Till I gnaw her slowly away. | |
| |
| And while I grow mad with the Moon’s cold taste, | |
| The World may beat on my door, | |
| Crying “Come out!” and crying “Make haste! | 15 |
| And give us the Moon once more!” | |
| But I will not answer them ever at all; | |
| I will laugh, as I count and hide | |
| The great black beautiful seeds of the Moon | |
| In a flower-pot deep and wide. | 20 |
| Then I will lie down and go fast asleep, | |
| Drunken with flame and aswoon. | |
| But the seeds will sprout, and the seeds will leap: | |
| The subtle swift seeds of the Moon. | |
| |
| And some day, all of the world that beats | 25 |
| And cries at my door, shall see | |
| A thousand moon-leaves sprout from my thatch | |
| On a marvellous white Moon-tree! | |
| Then each shall have moons to his heart’s desire: | |
| Apples of silver and pearl: | 30 |
| Apples of orange and copper fire, | |
| Setting his five wits aswirl. | |
| And then they will thank me, who mock me now: | |
| “Wanting the Moon is he!” | |
| Oh, I’m off to the mountain after the Moon, | 35 |
| Ere she falls from the dead fir-tree! | |
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WARNING
YOU must do nothing false | |
| Or cruel-lipped or low; | |
| For I am Conn the Fool, | |
| And Conn the Fool will know. | 40 |
| |
| I went by the door | |
| When Patrick Joyce looked out. | |
| He did not wish for me | |
| Or any one about. | |
| |
| He thought I did not see | 45 |
| The fat bag in his hand. | |
| But Conn heard clinking gold, | |
| And Conn could understand. | |
| |
| I went by the door | |
| Where Michael Kane lay dead. | 50 |
| I saw his Mary tie | |
| A red shawl round her head. | |
| |
| I saw a dark man lean | |
| Across her garden-wall. | |
| They did not know that Conn | 55 |
| Walked by at late dusk-fall. | |
| |
| You must not scold or lie, | |
| Or hate or steal or kill, | |
| For I shall tell the wind | |
| That leaps along the hill; | 60 |
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| And he will tell the stars | |
| That sing and never lie; | |
| And they will shout your sin | |
| In God’s face, bye and bye. | |
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| And God will not forget, | 65 |
| For all He loves you so.— | |
| He made me Conn the Fool, | |
| And bade me always know! | |
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