Is the Moon Tired? She Looks So Pale Lyrics
A child looks at the pale moon and asks whether she is tired. The moon climbs from east to west all night, shows papery white before the night comes and fades away before the dawn. Rossetti included it in Sing-Song, her book of 1872. It runs to eight lines in two verses.
Is the Moon Tired? She Looks So Pale
Is the moon tired? she looks so pale
Within her misty veil:
She scales the sky from east to west,
And takes no rest.
Before the coming of the night
The moon shows papery white;
Before the dawning of the day
She fades away.
Printed from https://nurseryrhymes.co/is-the-moon-tired-she-looks-so-pale/
- Type
- Poems for Children
- Written by
- Christina Rossetti
- Tune
- Slow and hushed, the voice dropping on 'takes no rest' and 'fades away'
- Best for ages
- 2 to 7 years
What Does Is the Moon Tired? She Looks So Pale Mean?
The poem begins with a question that a child might really ask. The moon looks "so pale" "within her misty veil", a veil being a thin cloth that covers a face, here a thin layer of haze or cloud. So the child wonders: is the moon tired? The poet describes the moon's long night: she "scales" (climbs) the sky "from east to west" and "takes no rest". The moon, like the sun, does appear to cross the sky from the east to the west, and the poem turns that into a journey.
The second verse follows the moon's evening and morning. "Before the coming of the night" she is papery white, as pale as a sheet of paper, and "before the dawning of the day" she fades away. The moon is often faintly visible in the sky at dusk and again in the morning, which is just what the poem describes.
The moon is called "she" throughout the poem, so this page does too.
History and Origin
The poem is in Sing-Song, a collection of short poems for children that Christina Rossetti published in 1872.
The poem is eight lines in two verses of four, and the two verses make one picture of a night: the moon's long climb, then her pale evening and morning faces.
Learning Activities
- Look for the moon: on a clear day or evening, see if the moon is visible, and talk about whether it looks pale.
- Moon walk: walk slowly from one side of the room to the other, as the moon crosses the sky from east to west.
- Papery white: hold a sheet of white paper next to a picture of the moon and compare them.
- Draw the veil: draw the moon behind a cloud with soft grey chalk or a crayon smudged with a finger.