There was once a queer little wizened man,
With a burning and baleful eye,
Whose heart was sore with the hate it held
For the lights that blaze on high.
And when at evening the sun went down,
And the planets in glory shone,
He would dance about in a frenzied way
And mutter and curse and groan.
One night when his soul was a fiery thing
Of hatred and discontent,
He put out a star that winked at him —
His passion had found a vent.
And night after night, as time went by,
The hour of his rapture came;
And star after star was turned as black
As the coals that follow flame.
Then darker and darker grew the sky,
And madder the weird man's mood,
He swallowed the glories that passed away
As a hungry imp his food.
Some nights his horrible fantasy
Would ruin a thousand stars:
Where once had glittered the gems of light
Gaped nothing but bald, black scars.
And ever and ever, as time went by,
His hunger for gloom increased:
He wiped the dipper from off the sky —
That night he had had a feast.
Then once when his soul was unsatisfied,
And he hated thought of day,
This madcap man in his misery
Made ink of the milky way.
And still the sun and the moon came up,
Though dim at the ends of space,
While he swore the universe should not bear
One smile upon its face.
And ever his power increased and grew,
Till the moon became his prey,
And with one fell swoop he swamped the sun
And ended the final day.
And all men died, save the little fiend,
Who groveled in sore affright;
Then he, too, perished, and dying cried:
"Oh, God! for a ray of light!"
