The Gipsy Girl and the Moon
The Moon and I a secret share!
See how she goes, all delicate and rare,
So slim and fair,
On light white feet
Across the heavenly meadow high
Where bloom pale daisy stars.…
With fingers long and bright
She parts the leaves
And peers impatient through the tall, damp grasses;

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Again, she petulant throws down
Treasure of silver and a silvern star
Before the silent woods to bribe their secret from them.

"Ah, forest kind, hides here my young Endymion?"

But no: the trees but murmur sleepily
And shake their nestling heads,
The rushes by the lake but bend and sway
And lean to see her brightness in the mirror-pool,
As she, poor hapless one, goes questing on her way,
Forever seeking, seeking,
Her young Endymion.

Ah, poor wan little Moon,
How do I know
All your secret and your woe?

White one, I too have my love Endymion…
And I too shall soon go eagerly seeking
Through the knee-high bracken and over the stream,
By the ghostly copse where the white owls hoot
I shall go to that brown little hut in the wood
Where dreams and waits my gipsy lover.
Warm are his lips, and his grey eyes deep,
And a stolen star lies drowned in each;
His cheeks are as brown as the russet leaf,
And smooth as a nut in the autumn weather,
And his black hair sheens like a blackbird's feather,
And ah! how his arms are strong!…
His head shall lie between my arms,
And close shall I hold him and weave a charm

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Lest you, Moonlady, should passing see him,
And steal from me, you with your long bright fingers,
His heart so wild and his love so tender.…

There, in the gloom where the pine-fire smoulders,
He stirs and wakes.  Ah, my gipsy lover!…

Oh, you poor little sad white Moon!

Rena Dillon Macintosh.