Minions Of The Moon

Through leafy windows of the trees

The full moon shows a wrinkled face,

And, trailing dim her draperies

Of mist from place to place,

The Twilight leads the breeze.

And now, far-off, beside a pool,

Dusk blows a reed, a guttural note;

Then sows the air around her full

Of twinkling disc and mote,

And moth-shapes soft as wool.

And from a glen, where lights glow by,

Through hollowed hands she sends a call,

And Solitude, with owlet cry,

Answers: and Evenfall

Steps swiftly from the sky.

And Mystery, in hodden gray,

Steals forth to meet her: and the Dark

Before him slowly makes to sway

A jack-o'-lantern spark

To light him on his way.

The grasshopper its violin

Tunes up, the katydid its fife;

The beetle drums; the grig makes din,

Informing Elfin life

Night's revels now begin.

And from each side along the way

Old Witchcraft waves a batlike hand,

And summons forth the toadstool gray

To point the path to Faeryland,

Where all man's longings stray.