Then something akin to discontent troubled the Wild Thing for the first time since the making of the marshes; and the soft grey ooze and the chill of the deep water seemed to be not enough, nor the first arrival from northwards of the tumultuous geese, nor the wild rejoicing of the wings of the wildfowl when every feather sings, nor the wonder of the calm ice that comes when the snipe depart and beards the rushes with frost and clothes the hushed waste with a mysterious haze where the sun goes red and low, nor even the dance of the Wild Things in the marvellous night; and the little Wild Thing longed to have a soul, and to go and worship God.

And when evensong was over and the lights were out, it went back crying to its kith.

But on the next night, as soon as the images of the stars appeared in the water, it went leaping away from star to star to the farthest edge of the marshlands, where a great wood grew where dwelt the Oldest of the Wild Things.

And it found the Oldest of Wild Things sitting under a tree, sheltering itself from the moon.

And the little Wild Thing said:  ’I want to have a soul to worship God, and to know the meaning of music, and to see the inner beauty of the marshlands and to imagine Paradise.’

And the Oldest of the Wild Things said to it:  ’What have we to do with God?  We are only Wild Things, and of the kith of the Elf-folk.’

But it only answered, ‘I want to have a soul.’

Then the Oldest of the Wild Things said:  ’I have no soul to give you; but if you got a soul, one day you would have to die, and if you knew the meaning of music you would learn the meaning of sorrow, and it is better to be a Wild Thing and not to die.’

So it went weeping away.

But they that were kin to the Elf-folk were sorry for the little Wild Thing; and though the Wild Things cannot sorrow long, having no souls to sorrow with, yet they felt for awhile a soreness where their souls should be, when they saw the grief of their comrade.

So the kith of the Elf-folk went abroad by night to make a soul for the little Wild Thing.  And they went over the marshes till they came to the high fields among the flowers and grasses.  And there they gathered a large piece of gossamer that the spider had laid by twilight; and the dew was on it.

Into this dew had shone all the lights of the long banks of the ribbed sky, as all the colours changed in the restful spaces of evening.  And over it the marvellous night had gleamed with all its stars.

Then the Wild Things went with their dew-bespangled gossamer down to the edge of their home.  And there they gathered a piece of the grey mist that lies by night over the marshlands.  And into it they put the melody of the waste that is borne up and down the marshes in the evening on the wings of the golden plover.  And they put into it, too, the mournful song that the reeds are compelled to sing before the presence of the arrogant North Wind.  Then each of the Wild Things gave some treasured memory of the old marshes, ’For we can spare it,’ they said.  And to all this they added a few images of the stars that they gathered out of the water.  Still the soul that the kith of the Elf-folk were making had no life.