ON the frigid face of the heath-hemmed pond There shaped the half-grown moon: Winged whiffs from the north with a husky croon Blew over and beyond. And the wind flapped the moon in its float on the pool, And stretched it to oval form; Then corkscrewed it like a wriggling worm: Then wanned it weariful. And I cared not for conning the sky above Where hung the substant thing, For my thought was earthward sojourning On the scene I had vision of. Since there it was once, in a secret year, I had called a woman to me From across this water, ardently -- And practised to keep her near; Till the last weak love-words had been said, And ended was her time, And blurred the bloomage of her prime, And white the earlier red. And the troubled orb in the pond's sad shine Was her very wraith, as scanned When she withdrew thence, mirrored, and Her days dropped out of mine. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE RAT by WILLIAM HENRY DAVIES MACFLECKNOE; OR, A SATIRE UPON THE TRUE-BLUE-PROTESTANT POET by JOHN DRYDEN A PRAYER FOR INDIFFERENCE by FRANCES (FANNY) MACARTNEY GREVILLE OVERLOOKING THE RIVER STOUR by THOMAS HARDY DAFFY-DOWN-DILLY [OR, DAFFYDOWNDILLY] by MOTHER GOOSE OCTOBER by PHILIP EDWARD THOMAS THE TENT ON THE BEACH: 3. THE GRAVE BY THE LAKE by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER |