Some of the Sights Wille saw, IIl

 

tide of the night, looking lost on the infinite sea!
Dreaming she must be surely !—she looked no-
thing but dreaming; for she seemed to care about
nothing—not even that she was old and worn, and
withered and dying,—not even that, instead of
sinking down in the west, into some deep bed of
dim repose, she was drifting, haggard and battered,
untidy and weak and sleepy, up and up into the
dazzling halls of the sun. Did she know that his
light would clothe her as with a garment, and hide
her in the highest recesses of his light-filled ceiling?
or was it only that she was dreaming, dreaming—
sweet, cool, tender dreams of her own, and neither
knew nor cared about anything around her? What
a strange look all the night wore while the tired old
moon was thus dreaming of the time when she
would come again, back through the vanishing and
the darkness—a single curved thread of a baby
moon, to grow and grow to a great full-grown lady
moon, able to cross with fearless gaze the gulf of
the vaulted heavens—alone, with neither sleep nor
dreams to protect her!

There were many other nights, far more commion-
place, which yet Willie liked well to look ott upon,
but which could not keep him long from his bed.
There was, for instance, the moonless and cloudy
night, when, if he had been able to pierce the dark-
ness to the core, he would have found nothing but
blackness, It had a power of its own, but one