CLAIR DE LUNE

By MINNIE FAEGRE KNOX

O never ye sleep in the moonlight,
 My pious old Granny would say,
For sleepers, bewitched by the moonlight,
 With madness thereafter are fay.

But why should I sleep when the moon shines,
 And waste all her beauty away?
There's more to be done when the moon shines
 Than slumber in houses and pray.

My body I'll bathe in the moon-rays,
 My mantle of dew shall be spun.
Encrowned in a nimbus of moon-rays,
 I'll dance till the night flee the sun.

And if I should yield to the moonbeams,
 Laid low by weird malisons' harm,
Let me sleep 'neath the turf in the moonbeams,
 Enthralled by the night's silver charm.