And Willie was philosopher enough to say to himself, that all this fainting and reviving, all this defeat and conquest, were but appearances; that the moon was her own bright self all the time, basking contented in the light of her sun, between whom and her the cloud could not creep, only between her and Willie.
But what delighted him most of all was to catch the moon dreaming.

That was when the old moon, tumbled over on her back, would come floating up the east, like a little boat on the rising tide of the night, looking lost on the infinite sea! Dreaming she must be surely!--she looked nothing 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 commonplace, which yet Willie liked well to look out 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 darkness to the core, he would have found nothing but blackness.

It had a power of its own, but one cannot say it had much to look at.