Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, MOON BATHERS, by JOHN FREEMAN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

MOON BATHERS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Falls from her heaven the moon, and stars sink burning
Last Line: So slowly, who shall say when light is gone?
Subject(s): Night; Silence; Sleep; Bedtime


FALLS from her heaven the Moon, and stars sink burning
Into the sea where blackness rims the sea,
Silently quenched. Faint light that the waves hold
Is only light remaining; yet still gleam
The sands where those now-sleeping young moon-bathers
Came dripping out of the sea and from their arms
Shook flakes of light, dancing on the foamy edge
Of quiet waves. They were all things of light
Tossed from the sea to dance under the Moon—
Her nuns, dancing within her dying round,
Clear limbs and breasts silvered with Moon and waves
And quick with windlike mood and body's joy,
Withdrawn from alien vows, by wave and wind
Lightly absolved and lightly all forgetting.
An hour ago they left. Remains the gleam
Of their late motion on the salt sea-meadow,
As loveliest hues linger when the sun's gone
And float in the heavens and die in reedy pools—
So slowly, who shall say when light is gone?





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