That was the first green ever seen in the moon.
For in the lunar world, there is no verdure. The
moon-children were very much perplexed how
best they should honour the angel's gift. But
at last we planted the green palm-branches in
the soft white snow, and broke the brittle
sun-crystals into shining splinters, and decked, and
studded the verdurous stems with these glittering
lights, till they twinkled brightly with trembling
beams, each like a tree of stars. Then we
danced hand-in-hand, with happy hymns upon
the milk-white snow, about our Christmas Tree.
For when the angels had passed us they were
singing a loud glad song in a language unknown
to us: but they told us that they were singing
the Mass of Christ, and we sung about the burning
branches in our own language the remembered
music of the angel's song, and called these
trees the trees of Christmas. These were the
first Christmas-trees that ever existed. But I
myself, for reasons you will presently understand,
and for the sake of my friends the earth-children,
have long since instituted upon earth these rites
of my native land. Well, time passed, as you
say down here. I use your language, but my
friend the Doctor Lacerta (to whom I hope
by-and-by to introduce you) will prove to you that
what you call time and space have no real existence;
that they are not things, nor even qualities
of things, but only your way of thinking of
things. However, I cannot now discuss with
you these rudiments of knowledge. When you
are better able to receive his instruction, I shall
request my friend the Doctor, who is as benevolent
as he is wise, to take you in hand.

There came throughout all the universe a
time of terror and disaster which I cannot even
yet recal without a shudder. What had happened
we knew not in the moon, or only vaguely
gathered from the voices of denunciation which
reached us from the vast eclipse. Thus we
learned only that some intolerable wrong had
been consummated upon earth. That mankind
had rejected the Beloved One, and murdered
their only friend. Even the Powers of Darkness
were appalled. The stars were quenched. The
abyss groaned, from its innermost, audible grief.
Every world was shaked and racked in the
convulsion of the universe. The moon was
suddenly swathed in thick dark, caught upon the
stifling shadow of the agonised earth, and split
from centre to surface as though with the effort
to cast forth from her heart the guilty knowledge
of some insupportable secret. How my brothers
fared in that wild moment I have never known.
For I myself, in the throes of the lunar convulsion,
was uplifted, whirled and dashed down,
down, down, into the terrible unknown dark.
When consciousness returned to me, I was lying
faint and dizzy in the midst of what then seemed
to me a wondrous hanging garden. It was a
long green avenue suspended slantwise in air
from a tall rough dusky tower, and hedged on
either hand with layers and clusters of lucent
cloven fans of fluttering verdure. In fact, as I
perceive you already understand, I had fallen on
the branch of a walnut-tree. I fell light, for I
was a little spirit, and had no bones to break. I
was soon on my feet, and forcibly attracted
forwards by an intense and delicious fragrance,
which was exhaling from a smooth green globe
pendant just above me. The first impulse of a
sense of desire, such as I had never felt before,
was to press my lips to the source of this new
delight. Then, with an uncontrollable longing
to absorb into my inmost being its entire
sweetness, my lips instinctively opened and
sought to close again upon the fragrant fruit.
But instantly a sharp pain shot through my
whole frame, I felt my jaws wrenched wide and
dislocated, my head seemed breaking open, and
again I fell, stunned by the sudden pang, and
soon senseless. When I recovered my senses, I
no longer recognised myself. My original
radiant form was changed, irretrievably changed,
into the little deformed object you behold. I
had tasted earthly fruit and fallen. Consigned to
such a body, my fall would probably have proved
fatal to me altogether, if it had not been broken
by a thick and strongly interwoven net of
tangled wild-flowers, in which I now found myself
deposited. Millions of tiny transparent creatures,
whose infinitesimal limbs seemed absolutely
substanceless, although emitting as they moved,
in infinite variety, the most brilliant and intense
colours,—some of them a deep quivering purple,
some the tenderest rose-tint, others a vivid
vermilion, others again an ardent amber,—some
with golden crowns and tiny spears, some
neck-deep in little violet frills, and others leaning
languid over the brims of hollow crimson conchs,
but all variously formed, and variously clothed,
were busily clustering about me, with welcoming
faces and benignant eyes. What chiefly struck
me in the appearance of these little beings was
the strange combination of what seemed to be
an imperfect organisation with the incredible
beauty of certain particulars. They made upon
me the effect of creatures in a state of transition,
only partially developed and struggling to shape
themselves into other forms, yet apparently
unable to complete with ease the inherent design of
their ultimate organisation. Each seemed restless
with itself and tremulous with an incessant
internal effort. These little creatures, as soon as
they perceived that I was aware of their
presence, began to sing about me (millions of little
whisperous voices) some such words as these:

Who shall restore us the leaves
Which the locust hath eaten?
Who shall conquer the canker that grieves
In the roses we sweeten?

What shall take from us, the frail, the infirm,
That curse that in spring lets
Feed forlorn in the greenwood the great palmer
worm
With his wonderful winglets?

And the young stems that still are
A prey to the tooth
Of the mail'd caterpillar
That creepeth uncouth!