The Man in the Moon

Summary

This poem is an imaginative poem, which means whatever is mentioned in this story does not actually happen; the poet just imagines that it does. The poem is about a person on the moon who is about to drink some of the moon's water, but then the stars scare him, and he cannot.

Stanza-by-stanza explanation

The Man in the Moon as he sails the sky
Is a very remarkable skipper.
But he made a mistake when he tried to take
A drink of milk from the dipper.

In this stanza, the poet says that there is a man on the moon and that he is a very good skipper, but he makes a mistake when he tries to take a sip from the moon.

He dipped right out of the Milky Way,
And slowly and carefully filled it,
The Big Bear growled, and the Little Bear howled
And frightened him so that he spilled it! 

In the second stanza, the poet says that the man had dipped right out of the Milky Way and filled the milk carefully until the big bear growled and the little bear howled, scaring him so badly that he spilt it.