A MOONBEAM'S HOPE

There once was a wicked King who ruled with an iron fist. Everyone was too afraid to speak out about the King but a small poet with a good heart did. He wrote a poem in protest against his harsh rule and told all of the land of the perils of an evil King. The King heard about this the next morning and had the poet locked up in a deep dark dungeon for a long time. The poet spent his nights in darkness alone and afraid in his tiny prison cell. It was cold and damp and the rats roamed all about. He looked up at the heavens at the full moon once a month, dreaming of freedom and peace for all. The moon looked down from high above at the predicament of the just little poet and felt very sad and sorry for him. Out of pity he would send a wish of hope down to the little bard on a tiny moon beam shining brightly. Often this would be the only beacon of hope that the prisoner had and it would lift his spirits up greatly where he was still held unjustly in the dark prison all alone. He spent ten long years locked up like this with the moon sending him a bright moonbeam of hope with every full moon. It was a long, lonely and hard prison sentence and the moon and his bright light became his only friends. Whenever the moonbeam reached him in his cold little cell he smiled up at the heavens and the bright shining moon would smile back in love and good hope. After all this time the wicked old King died one night and a new one came to the throne. The people had petitioned him to set all the captives free that the bad old King had locked up unfairly in his time in power. One of the men to be freed at once was the lonely old poet who had done no wrong but to speak the truth in defense of the people and the kingdom. Now his name was restored in honor and the new King who loved and admired him crowned him in riches and wealth untold. At night when he looked up from his window he would remember his faithful old friend the round shining moon and the lovely moonbeam of hope that he had always sent him in his greatest hour of need. He went one night and wrote a beautiful poem about the moon and its bright shining rays of hope and love that had saved his soul so often. When he had finished writing the lovely poem he looked at the bright shining moon and smiled to himself. Silently the moon smiled back at his old friend, the just little poet. True hearts will always beat as one.