The Children in the Moon - Adam Gottlob Oehlenschläger

Hearken, child, unto a story! 

For the moon is in the sky, 

And across her shield of silver, 

See! two tiny cloudlets fly. 

Watch them closely, mark them sharply, 

As across the light they pass, — 

Seem they not to have the figures 

Of a little lad and lass? 

See, my child, across their shoulders 

Lies a little pole; and, lo! 

Yonder speck is just the bucket, 

Swinging softly to and fro. 

It is said, these little children, 

Many and many a summer night, 

To a little well far northward 

Wandered in the still moonlight. 

To the wayside well they trotted, 

Filled their little buckets there, 

And the Moon-man, looking downward, 

Saw how beautiful they were.

Quoth the man, ' How vexed and sulky 

Looks the little rosy boy! 

But the little handsome maiden 

Trips behind him full of joy.

'To the well behind the hedgerow 

Trot the little lad and maiden; 

From the well behind the hedgerow 

Now the little pail is laden. 

'How they please me! how they tempt me! 

Shall I snatch them up to-night? 

Snatch them, set them here for ever 

In the middle of my light? 

'Children, ay, and children's children 

Should behold my babes on high, 

And my babes should smile for ever, 

Calling others to the sky!' 

Thus the philosophic Moon-man 

Muttered many years ago, 

Set the babes with pole and bucket, 

To delight the folks below. 

Never is the bucket empty, 

Never are the children old; 

Ever when the moon is shining 

We the children may behold. 

Ever young and ever little, 

Ever sweet and ever fair! 

When thou art a man, my darling, 

Still the children will be there! 

Ever young and ever little, 

They will smile when thou art old; 

When thy locks are thin and silver, 

Theirs will still be shining gold. 

They will haunt thee from their heaven, 

Softly beckoning down the gloom — 

Smiling in eternal sweetness 

On thy cradle, on thy tomb! 

---

Adam Gottlob Oehlenschläger (1779 - 1850) Denmark

Translated by Robert Buchanan

Source: Ballad stories of the affections, by Robert Williams Buchanan, Routledge, 1866