Sun Follows Moon Until She Tires Then Carries Her Until She s Strong and Runs Ahead of Him Again

The Ask Wizards mailbox is bombarded each week with questions about the flavour and setting of Magic. Most of the questions are nigh the electric current expansions… why Akroma looks the manner she does, or why Soldiers have no mouths. But one older topic that seems to generate a lot of postal service is "The Honey Vocal of Nighttime and Day."

"Is 'The Dearest Vocal of Night and 24-hour interval' a existent poem? Is it printed anywhere?" the questions ask. And fine questions those are. After all, the title is attributed to the season text of seventeen cards in the Mirage and Visions expansions.

Yes, it is a existent poem. Jenny Scott, a long-time editor at Wizards of the Coast and frequent correspondent to The Duelist magazine, wrote it as part of the worldbuilding for Jamuraa, the role of Dominaria where the Delusion story takes place.

Hither is the full poem with footnotes explaining which cards quote it.

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Dear Song of Night and Day
by Jenny Scott

He (Night) / She (Day)

Wrap yourself in your best bright apparel, your cherry-red and purple scarves of silk.
Run with me to the festival, where nosotros volition dance until sunrise.
The dwarves volition crush their funny drums of zebra skins and hollowed trees,
while stiltwalkers perform, and the musician blows his bamboo flute.

And belatedly in the night, the poets and storytellers entertain,
please usa with their dancing words, as we listen, clapping past the burn down.
Enchant me with your tale-telling. Tell about Tree, Grass, River, and Wind.
Tell why Truth must fight with Falsehood, and why Truth volition always win.ane

I will tell my begetter'southward stories: how the giant mantis fooled Death
by holding even so as a felled tree; how the elephants trampled
the leopard cub, and its father, though he knew, killed nine goats instead;2
how pirates gambled with a djinn and lost the affair more dear than gilt.iii

Tonight we'll consume a farewell feast. Cold corn porridge is not plenty.
Permit's pare papayas, pineapples, and mangoes, potable coconut milk,
and bake bananas.iv We'll dine on crocodiles, wild birds, and turtles,
perhaps a hippopotamus--if but y'all can catch it first.

I'll build a palace made of stone. Two hippo-headed guards will serve,
and tigers carry in your meals. I'll capture flying zebras
for your steeds, and make full the stable with every kind of unicorn.5
Butterflies and salamanders will decorate your garden.

I'll strand long strings of beads for you lot, blue, the colour but kings may vesture.
I'll carve a soapstone lioness, a wooden box to lock it in,
girded with sapphire amulets, ostrich feathers, ivory.
These things will protect you while I'm gone, remind you of my love for y'all.6

Your vocalisation resounds like a songbird'due south, every give-and-take is a sweet, soft song.
When you run you're graceful and swift, sleek as a powerful panther.seven
Mysterious chameleon, yous're a m women at one time,
sharp and potent as a lioness, yet gentle as a striped gazelle.

On this our concluding day together, permit usa walk across the grasslands.
Agree my manus and let's walk slowly, seeing everything as children.
Let's walk on the Daraja Plains, where leopards hang from copse, dosing,
tasseled tails swaying in the shade, near villages of tree-habitation elves.

Glorious, to walk again across the savannah with my dearest.
A lion walks commandingly, a general among his troops,
camped the night before a battle. A snake, colorful and coiled, loops
effectually his bender, mischievous, hanging over the hamlet path.

We'll find termites in their nests, hard tall towers above the plains,
and point-eared cats, taking their turns, guarding their many entrances.
We'll find the basket-nests of birds hanging from the acacia tree.
Rhinoceroses and dragons for one time volition permit us walk in peace.

When lightning tears the sky'southward dark cloak and heaven'due south bird beats the water
on the dirty plains with its large wings, termites and frogs escape their homes
toward the lamps in the nearest village. Spiders dry themselves indoors,
the spotted lizards that never fall from ceilings suddenly appear.

In the wood, fires lite the sky as the black clouds unfold their weight.eight.
The black-and-white sacred monkey holds her children to her, and waits.9
Honey, like lightning hits suddenly. It sparks the center with blows of calorie-free,
its fire extending, bends, expands, beats and breaks your hiding places.

* * *

Remember when nosotros were children, herding the sheep together,
leading them over the grassy hills with long sticks. Your silly songs
fabricated me express joy, and in the evening, you'd enchant me with your stories,
lying on your dorsum beside me. Even then my heart was yours.

I call back your sacred rites. You were so funny, so grown up,
so stiff and serious, all artillery and elbows. You went in a girl,
simply yous returned a warrior. You marched back with the others--
your hair was cutting, your eye tattooed with the cerise triangle of war.10

Tomorrow I must go, my love. I will tattoo my head with braids.
My shield will bear a shining sun so yous will always exist with me.
Inlaid with gilded, information technology will shine like glowing embers.11 I volition return
with lizard skins for your sandals. Paint your eyes black and wait for me.12

I am the lord's day, you are the moon. Wherever yous lead I will go,
following across the wide heaven, as long as I live and you lot love.
Sun follows Moon until she tires, then carries her until she'south strong
and runs alee of him again.13 I'll carry you, too, my beloved.

My love, nosotros are not Sun and Moon. Instead we are like day and night.
The old ones say Solar day is a woman, who works only while it is light.
She herds her goats and catches fish, fills her fields with gilt corn,
shows her children what is just and protects them from the cobra.

Solar day loves Night, who works in darkness, walking through heaven's milky heaven
collecting stars with his quick artillery, piling them into a handbasket
like a child collecting lizards and piling them into her pot
until the pot overflows with lizards, 'til the basket overflows with light.

Night wears a black cloak lined with fire, studded inside with gleaming stars.
At dawn and dusk he spies his beloved. Beyond the rolling hills of sky,
they glimpse each other--so briefly. They throw each other kisses, cry.
Their tears spill over Jamuraa. Mixed with blood, they wash everything red.14

But once, with a sorcerer's help, Fourth dimension was stopped and Mean solar day stood nevertheless.15
Dark spread over Jamuraa, wrapped Solar day in his dark cloak and held her.
In their miraculous embrace, the two became as One. Until
pulled from 24-hour interval'southward arms, Dark sank, commanded by the western horizon that e'er beckons him to come up.

I won't give up hope, my beloved.

Our dear is like the river in the summertime flavour of long rains:
For a little while it spilled its banks, flooding the crops in the fields.sixteen
But presently it volition evaporate with the dry estrus. Similar 24-hour interval from Night,
I'll live my life apart from y'all, just glimpsing you across the sky,
because you lot cannot change, my dearest, and nor can I.17

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 [ane] "Enchant me…" - Village Elderberry, Mirage
 [2] "I will tell my begetter'due south stories… how the elephants…" - Wild Elephant, Delusion
 [3] "…pirates…" - Kukemssa Pirates, Mirage
 [4] "Tonight…" - Early Harvest, Mirage and Sixth Edition
 [5] "I'll capture…" - Zebra Unicorn, Mirage (note that "flying" was changed to "gentle" on the card.)
 [6] "These things…" - Remedy, Visions and Sixth Edition
 [7] "When y'all run…" - Panther Warriors, Visions
 [eight] "In the forest…" - Flare, Mirage
 [9] "The black-and-white…" - Simoon, Visions
 [10] "…you returned a warrior… your pilus was cut…" - Zhalfirin Knight, Mirage
 [eleven] "My shield…" - Blinding Light, Mirage
 [12] "I will return…" - Femeref Knight, Mirage
 [13] "Sun follows…" - Chariot of the Sun, Delusion
 [fourteen] "Their tears…" - Mortal Wound, Visions
 [15] "Simply in one case…" - Sands of Fourth dimension, Visions
 [xvi] "Our love…" - Summer Blossom, Visions
 [17] "Like Day from Night…" - Unfulfilled Desires, Mirage

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Source: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/love-song-night-and-day-2003-04-14

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