I see aloft the white full-moon upswaying Through the long breadths of cloudless, starless sky; Her thin and ashy light is subtly playing: It sparkles on the streets and housetops high. She lights as she will ever light our darkness; Until the sun has quenched his lava-streams, She fills night, dreadful chill and distant starkness With pale translucence of regretful dreams: The moon of poisonous drugs intoxicating, The moon, the nearest of all planets to us, The moon of longing, empty hope, vain waiting, The moon that gives us death, that does renew us; The great moon that, through purple skies of sorrow, Glides, a vast pallid shape of perfect grieving, Linking the death of dusk to new-born morrow, As suffering links the souls of all the living. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A BANJO SONG by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR DAYBREAK by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW DUSK; TO MADEMOISELLE MARIE LAURENCIN by GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE A MIDNIGHT MEDITATION by WILLIAM EDMONSTOUNE AYTOUN A LAMENT by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES |