In honor of World Poetry Day, we offer this whimsical verse from the pen of popular newspaper poet Nixon Waterman, published in the December 1892 issue of Illustrated World’s Fair.

THE MAN IN THE MOON

by Nixon Waterman

The man in the moon, as he sails through the sky,

Can’t help but to turn an admiring eye,

And linger a while as he passes the site

Of that perfectly wonderful City of White.

And he says to himself, “All next summer I’ll see

The Fair without paying a penny, he, he!

And I won’t have to peep through a crack in the fence,

Nor I won’t have to part with my good fifty cents.

.

“I’ll come up each evening before it is dark

And saunter around here right over the park.

I’ll stay just as late as I please and anon

Wink at the police who would have me ‘move on.

I’ll see the whole show just us slick us a pin.

While everyone else has to pay to get in,

For unless they come after me in a balloon,

They won’t get a cent from the man in the moon.”

“East Lagoon by Moonlight” [Image from Picturesque World’s Fair (W. B. Conkey, 1894).]