Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, BALLAD TO THE MOON, by ALFRED DE MUSSET


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

BALLAD TO THE MOON, by             Poem Explanation         Poet's Biography
First Line: Twas a dusky night I spied
Last Line: "like the dot above an ""I."
Subject(s): Moon


'TWAS a dusky night I spied,
Hitched above the steeple high,
The moon ride
Like the dot above an "i."

Moon what sombre ghost doth trail
Thee in leash through the unknown
Shadow pale,
Face a-slant or fully shown?

Art thou heaven's only eye
Whence a sneaking cherub peers,
Us to spy
As from thy wan mask he leers?

Art thou nothing but a bowl?
Or a spider huge of girth
That doth roll
Legless, armless, over earth?

Art thou, as I half do dread,
That old clock that sounds the doom
Of the dead
Damned to hell's eternal gloom?

On thy speeding brow what toll,
This same night, of time is ta'en
From the whole
Of their everlasting pain?

Art thou nibbled by a worm
When thy disk grows black and dim,
And thy form
Shrivels to a crescent slim?

Who despoiled thee yesternight?
Wert thou as a huge axe-blade
Hidden bright
In some giant of the glade?

For thou camest, chill and wan,
And they slender horn did spill
On my pane
Light athwart the window-sill.

Go, O Moon, that ebbest slow,
Fair-browed Phœbe's body fell
Far below,
Deep into the surgy swell.

Now no more than face hast thou,
Wrinkled and long overworn;
Even now
Fades away thy brow forlorn.

The white huntress give us back
In her stainless maidenhood,
On the track
Of the drowsed deer in the wood.

O! beneath the hazel screen
Underneath the budding plane,
Dian Queen
And her lusty hounds astrain!

Where the black kid halts in doubt
High upon his rocky hill,
Hearkening out
How the sound drifts nearer still.

Following till the quarry's ta'en,
Gully, sward, or field asway
Gold with grain,
Dian's hounds are sped away.

O eve when the winds arise,
Phœbe, God Apollo's kin,
Doth surprise
By dim streams, a foot dipt in!

Phœbe who at close of day
On the shepherd's lips doth sit
Them to sway
Like a light bird newly lit.

Moon, the mind will ever hold
Of thy loves the lovely tale,
As in gold
Letters that can never pale.

And in youth that cannot die
Blest for ever thou to him
That goes by,
Full of face or sickle-slim.

Thou hast love from shepherds old,
Thou that alabaster-browed,
Nigh the fold
Setst the sheep-dogs baying loud.

Thou hast love from seamen hale
Shut within high-builded ships
That do sail
Under skies without eclipse.

And the girl thro' woodland ways
Nimble-footed that doth fare,
In thy praise
Breathes her song upon the air.

Like a bear that drags its chains,
Thy blue eyes behold below
The loud main's
Endless heaving to and fro.

Why, be winds or loud or dumb;
Why, be skies or foul or fair,
Hither come
I this way to sit and stare?

'Tis to see in dusk of night
Hitched above the steeple high,
The moon bright,
Like the dot above an "i."





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


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