eared
in the water, it went leaping away from star to star to the farthest
edge of the marshlands, where a great wood grew where dwelt the
Oldest of the Wild Things.

And it found the Oldest of Wild Things sitting under a tree,
sheltering itself from the moon.

And the little Wild Thing said: 'I want to have a soul to worship
God, and to know the meaning of music, and to see the inner beauty
of the marshlands and to imagine Paradise.'

And the Oldest of the Wild Things said to it: 'What have we to do
with God? We are only Wild Things, and of the kith of the Elf-folk.'

But it only answered, 'I want to have a soul.'

Then the Oldest of the Wild Things said: 'I have no soul to give
you; but if you got a soul, one day you would have to die, and if
you knew the meaning of music you would learn the meaning of sorrow,
and it is better to be a Wild Thing and not to die.'

So it went weeping away.

But they that were kin to the Elf-folk were sorry for the little
Wild Thing; and though the Wild Things cannot sorrow long, having no
souls to sorrow with, yet they felt for awhile a soreness where
their souls should be, when they saw the grief of their comrade.

So the kith of the Elf-folk went abroad by night to make a soul for
the little Wild Thing. And they went over the marshes till they came
to the high fields among the flowers and grasses. And there they
gathered a large piece of gossamer that the spider had laid by
twilight; and the dew was on it.

Into this dew had shone all the lights of the long banks of the
ribbed sky, as all the colours changed in the restful spaces of
evening. And over it the marvellous night had gleamed with all its
stars.

Then the Wild Things went with their dew-bespangled gossamer down to
the edge of their home. And there they gathered a piece of the grey
mist that lies by night over the marshlands. And into it they put
the melody of the waste that is borne up and down the marshes in the
evening on the wings of the golden plover. And they put into it, too,
the mournful song that the reeds are compelled to sing before the
presence of the arrogant North Wind. Then each of the Wild Things
gave some treasured memory of the old marshes, 'For we can spare
it,' they said. And to all this they added a few images of the stars
that they gathered out of the water. Still the soul that the kith of
the Elf-folk were making had no life.

Then they put into it the low voices of two lovers th