Once upon a time there was a little child who did not want to go to bed.
“The yellow chickens are all asleep,” said his mother, as she undressed him. “I heard the old hen calling them, cluck, cluck, cluck, before you had eaten your supper.”
“But I do not want to go to sleep,” said the child.
“The pigeons are all asleep,” said his mother, “up in the pigeon house. ‘Coo-roo, coo-roo, good-night,’ they said, then tucked their heads under their wings.”
“But I do not want to go to sleep,” said the child.
“The little red calf is asleep in the barn,” said the mother; “and the lambs are asleep on green clover beds;” and she put the child into his own white bed.
It was a soft downy bed close beside a window, but the child did not want to lie there. He tossed about under the coverlet, and the tears were beginning to run down his cheeks when, all at once, the moon looked in at the window.
“There!” said his mother. “The moon has come to tell you good-night. See how it is smiling.”
The moon shone right into the child’s eyes. “Good night, little child, sleep well,” it seemed to say.
“Good night,” said he; and he lay still on his bed, and watched the moon while his mother sang:—
Lovely moon, lovely moon, smiling on high,
Like a bright angel’s face up in the sky,
Baby is watching you, Baby and I,
Lovely moon, lovely moon, up in the sky.
“Can the moon see the lambs?” asked the child sleepily. His eyelids were so heavy that he could scarcely keep them open, while the moon looked in at the window and his mother sang:—
Tell us, oh, lovely moon, what do you see,
As you shine down upon meadow and tree?
I see the little lambs, I see the sheep,
I see a baby child going to sleep.
The moon smiled at the child and his mother, and the mother smiled at the moon; but the little child did not see them, for he was fast asleep.
Credits
Maud Lindsay was an American children's author active in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, best known for her gentle, image-rich stories written for very young children. The Lovely Moon is notable for the two embedded lullaby verses, giving the story an unusually musical quality that invites parents to sing aloud as they read.
