Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, MOON, by GEORG HEYM


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

MOON, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: He whom the far horizon bore, blood-red
Last Line: A gentle water where dark elms now lean.
Subject(s): Moon


He whom the far horizon bore, blood-red,
He who from hell's great gullet hugely rose,
Black clouds wreathed close about his purple head,
As round the brow of gods acanthus blows,

He plants his golden foot there where he wills,
And like an athlete heaves his mighty chest,
And like a Parthian prince he climbs the hills,
His curls shed burning from his helmet's crest.

High over Sardis and black gulfs of night,
On silvered towers, on seas of battlements,
Where sentinels fill their loud trumps with might,
He summons morning from far Pontic tents.

Slumbering at his feet, broad Asia lies
In the blue shadows, under Ararat,
Whose snowy head gleams on the lonely skies,
To where Arabia lets soft waters pat

Her pale feet, wanton and imperious,
While southward, like some great and shining swan
Upon the waters nods white Sirius,
And singing, down the oceans passes on.

With vasty bridges, blue as naked steel,
With walls as white as marble, resting lies
Tall Nineveh, where darkling valleys kneel,
And a few torches throw against the skies

Their light like lances, and where darkly gleams
Euphrates, with his head plunged in the waste.
And Shushan rests, while round her brow fly dreams
Still drunken with the wine's wild honied taste.

Above the black stream, high upon the dome,
Listening to some wandering evil star,
A white-robed star-gazer sees planets gloam,
And beckons Aldebaran from afar,

While he wars with the moon for whitest light
Where night eternal streams, and on the shore
Of distant deserts, with blue glitter bright,
Run lonely brooks, and winds more softly soar

About bare temples and far olive-trees,—
A silver sea, and in a thin ravine
Of ancient mountains, deeply hidden, flees
A gentle water where dark elms now lean.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net