The Silver House

Summary

This poem by John Lea talks about the moon and how he has used his imagination to create various situations for us to think about the moon and how it forms itself and disappears. He uses some very good examples to express his thoughts. 

Stanza-by-stanza explanation 

There’s a silver house in the lovely sky,
As round as a silver crown;
It takes two weeks to build it up,
And two to pull it down.

In the first stanza, the poet says that there is a silver roundhouse in the sky, and it takes two weeks to come up and two weeks to go away. By this, he means that the moon is the lovely house in the sky, and the moon takes two weeks to form and two weeks to go away. 

There’s a man who lives in the silver house,
In a lonely sort of way;
But what his name is, no one knows,
Or no one likes to say.

In the second stanza, the poet expands on the same thought and says that there is a man who lives on the moon, but no one knows who he is, or the people who do know don't tell anyone about it.

Yet when you go to bed tonight,
Just draw the window blind,
And peep out at the silver moon,
This lonely man to find. 

In the third stanza, the poet tells us that before we go to sleep, we should look outside from our window and look for the man on the moon because the man is all alone. 

But if his house is taken down,
And all the sky is bare,
Then go to bed because, of course,
The poor man won’t be there.

In the fourth stanza, the poet says that if the sky is empty, you should go to sleep as there is no point in waiting or looking for the man who lives on the moon because his house is broken so that he wouldn't be there.