Classic and Contemporary Poetry
A LEGEND OF THE MOON, by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON Poet's Biography First Line: Nightlong I yearned so madly toward the moon Last Line: Of moons and mortals and of olden days. Subject(s): Cities; Death; Earth; Legends; Life; Mankind; Moon; Urban Life; Dead, The; World; Human Race | ||||||||
NIGHTLONG I yearned so madly toward the moon, Meseemed she whispered low the ancient rune Of her past history -- as strange a word On life and death and doom as e'er I heard: So wondrous strange it did my soul constrain To tell the tale again. A legend this of eld and other spheres: In times before the dawn of human deeds On earth, life swarmed upon the mystic moon, Where now is stony silence, -- ages ere Chaldeans probed the riddles of the sky, Or swart Egyptians slumbered in their tombs. The air was sweet for breathing: all the ways Trembled with speech of folk or song of birds Blithe-mooded -- cities clung along the slopes Or darkened on the plains, the land teemed tilth; Wide-yawing ships swept over seas whose names Are immemorial; wars raged red, and Art Thrust temples white where once the wild beast prowled, And in her limbec poured men's grosser thoughts Distilling dreams and subtle dews divine. The moon-man is the sole possessor now In those vast regions. He is known of all The children from their birth-while: him you see On cloud-clear nights (if you will patient peer) Sitting upon a round of massy stone Within a great gray desert where the light Is ghostly wan. Upon his face is writ Unuttered agonies of things long lost Yet keen remembered: rugged is his brow, And in his eyes a Horror blackly broods. But how he came, and why he sits alone, Behooves the telling -- hark, it happened thus: Eons ago the gods had mind to make (For pleasure of their august realms) a world Of beings fleshed in bodies, but with souls Whose spark was like their own. Whereon they glanced About those primal heavens, and saw afar A little globe that wheeled a constant course Through space. And since it looked a seemly spot To nourish life, they spoke the fiat -- then A cry of young humanity was heard Upon the moon. But ere the word was said That gave this dubious gift of living, lo! The gods did set a bound to lunar years, To lives that dwell thereon: So long a time (They swore) as human face should look on face With faith and kindliness, might breath be drawn, And no whit after, -- changeless the decree. Herein was shown most meet desire that love Be Lord of Life, that neither loveless crime Nor lust should harden hearts until that men, Wrapped up in self-hood, let their brothers go To bliss or bane unnoted: hence the law. Then ages fled and kingdoms waxed and waned In that moon-country with the march of time. But life, that first bloomed freshly, like a flower Sweet-natured with the air and rain and sun, Grew weed-like, noisome, foul. Thereon the gods Sent plagues to scourge: -- the moon-folk heeded not. Then certain of the cities most engorged In fleshly ways, were smote; as afterwhile The earth saw cities stricken in their pride: Sodom, Gomorrah, wide-walled Babylon, Whose monarch was anhungered with the kine. The people paused, but soon, emboldened, turned Unto their idol of the cloven hoof; And over all the land men's eyes were glazed Toward Love, and greedy but for sordid gain. Now came the gods to council, and the law, The ancient screed wherein was set the terms Of habitation on the doomed orb, Was gravely conned: and it was plain to see That total, fell destruction must ensue, If they would keep their word inviolate. And so with ponderous, grim debate they chose To send a rain of fire from heaven to scorch The world of men and women on the moon: Save only one, a hermit hoary, who Had all his days lived wisely, sought the light And loved his fellows. Leave him to his prayer, And suffer him to make a gentler end Whenso he wills, the mighty mandate read. So it was done: one awful day and night (Uncalendared within that dateless land) The liquid flame licked down, and ceasing, left Ashes and bones and formless waste, wherefrom The some-time splendor of a world had been. And he, the moon-man, whom the children know, The childlike hermit of this elder race, Was left alone. And now a bleak despair And sorrow nipped his blood, and he was fain To perish by his cave. But erst at eve He stood within a strange and windless plain And with lack-luster gaze beheld where shone Through trackless leagues of space the clustered lights Of constellations, idly looked upon Fixed stars of vibrant flickerings, did mark The changeless glow of planets in their path, Argent or gold or ruddy-faced like Mars: And saw, or deemed he saw, or dreamed he saw, A shape, that moved upon one orb, the earth, A silver cirque that lit the nether sky. Whereat a tremor shook his spirit lax, And it grew tense: his soul was hung upon That shifting thing, that blot against a star, Until he knew it for a mortal man And wept, and cried aloud, to think that he Was less companionless. Thereafter, though His lot was gruesome and his sorrows lead Against his heart, a kind of pensive calm Settled within him as he watched our orb Thro' years and sweeping cycles, e'en to Now. Nor had he will to die, because of this Weird watch and ward, this brooding over us. Nay, once he even smiled a moment's space, Beholding how a deed of charity Was done a lonesome soul: and once his eyes Looked dreamy in their sockets gaunt, because An earth-poet's fancy dubbed yon yellow ball An octoroon beside those slim white girls, The stars. But most his mood set sorrowward, And most his sighs were like the homeless wind That moans about the gables in the night. Sleep does not visit him from month to month: Mandrake nor poppy may not lure his eyes From earthward quest; awake and sad, he seems To yearn within his poised and dizzy haunt For easement of the warning in his mind To us of earth, lest we let Love be lost -- That crystal candle 'midst the bogs of hate And guile and lack-of-Love and lusts untamed -- As did his kindred, so their sorry case Be ours: remembering that the selfsame gods Shaped him and us and all. Be such his thoughts Or not, he keeps his vigil, and his front Looks dumbly down, -- while I upgaze at him And wonder if his brain be not distraint With horrid weight of memory. Shall he find A final solace for a fate forlorn, And meet with us upon some higher sphere To commerce once again with humankind By touch of hand and mouth and interchange Of words, a long withholden boon to him? So far the moon has whispered: here she stays Her silver secrets, leaves me unappeased. Along came Science in a surly mood Of introspection, harked a while, nor spake, Frowned ominously, and then at length found speech, That made but tatters of my peopled moon, The mid-air ship that bore my single fleece Of story. It is false, quoth he, for never Since chaos was there breath on yonder orb Nor moving wight, nor sound of speech nor song To make the mountains merry and the plains Vital and thick with voices: None but babes And sucklings can be fooled with such a myth. Whereat mine answer: Men are children still, And love their legends and their wonder-tales. Moreover, came the record not from heaven, From very heaven upon a cloudless night? So, Science, leave me to my conjuring Of moons and mortals and of olden days. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...HOW MUCH EARTH by PHILIP LEVINE THE SHEEP IN THE RUINS by ARCHIBALD MACLEISH THE CONQUERORS by PHYLLIS MCGINLEY THE MARMOZET by HILAIRE BELLOC MEN, WOMEN, AND EARTH by ROBERT BLY BROTHERS: 3. AS FOR MYSELF by LUCILLE CLIFTON BLACK SHEEP by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON |
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