moon

Standing alone, a study in itself,
How Shakespeare’s volume glorifies my shelf!
For thence his spirit forth on mine has shined,
Like a great morning on the hills of mind.
Sphered in the light of his creative powers,
A wonder-world, inorbing this of ours,
Gathers around us, like the peopled haze
That wraps some roamer in a dream’s wild ways.

Lean fatal hags ride in the troubled air,
And wing’d immortals meet us everywhere;
These of a silken loveliness that shows
Like the dim beauty of a moonlit rose;

My Pa and Ma their honeymoon
Passed in an Andulasian June,
And though produced in Drury Lane,
I must have been conceived in Spain.
Now having lapsed from fair estate,
A coster's is my sorry fate;
Yet on my barrow lo! I wheel
The golden harvest of Saville.

"Sweet Spanish oranges!" I cry.
Ah! People deem not as they buy,
That in a dream a steel guitar
I strum beside the Alcázar,
And at the Miralda I meet
A signorita honey sweet,
And stroll beneath the silver moon

Give me a cabin in the woods
Where not a human soul intrudes;
Where I can sit beside a stream
Beneath a balsam bough and deam,
And every morning see arise
The sun like bird of paradise;
Then go down to the creek and fish
A speckled trout for breakfast dish,
And fry it in an ember fire -
Ah! there's the life of my desire.

Alas! I'm tied to Wall Street where
They reckon me a millionaire,
And sometimes in a day alone
I gain a fortune o'er the 'phone.
Yet I to be a man was made,

All the snows have fled, and grass springs up on the meadows,
And there are leaves on the trees;
Earth has changed her looks, and turbulent rivers decreasing,
Slowly meander along;
Now, with the naked nymphs and her own twin sisters, Aglaïa
Gracefully dances in time.
But the Year, and the Hours which hurry along our existence,
Solemnly warn us to die.
Zephyr removes the frost, and Summer, soon destined to perish,
Treads in the footsteps of Spring,
After the joyous reign of Autumn, abounding in apples,

There is a book, who runs may read,
Which heavenly truth imparts,
And all the lore its scholars need,
Pure eyes and Christian hearts.

The works of God above, below,
Within us and around,
Are pages in that book, to show
How God Himself is found.

The glorious sky embracing all
Is like the Maker's love,
Wherewith encompassed, great and small
In peace and order move.

The Moon above, the Church below,
A wondrous race they run,
But all their radiance, all their glow,

1

Senlin sits before us, and we see him.
He smokes his pipe before us, and we hear him.
Is he small, with reddish hair,
Does he light his pipe with meditative stare,
And a pointed flame reflected in both eyes?
Is he sad and happy and foolish and wise?
Did no one see him enter the doors of the city,
Looking above him at the roofs and trees and skies?
'I stepped from a cloud', he says, 'as evening fell;
I walked on the sound of a bell;
I ran with winged heels along a gust;

There once was a limpet puffed with pride
Who said to the ribald sea:
"It isn't I who cling to the rock,
It's the rock that clings to me;
It's the silly old rock who hugs me tight,
Because he loves me so;
And though I struggle with all my might,
He will not let me go."

Then said the sea, who hates the rock
That defies him night and day:
"You want to be free - well, leave it to me,
I'll help you get away.
I know such a beautiful silver beach,
Where blissfully you may bide;

Oh how I love the laughing sea,
Sun lances splintering;
Or with a virile harmony
In salty caves to sing;
Or mumbling pebbles on the shore,
Or roused to monster might:
By day I love the sea, but more
I love it in the night.

High over ocean hangs my home
And when the moon is clear
I stare and stare till fairy foam
Is music in my ear;
Till glamour dances to a tune
No mortal man could make;
And there bewitched beneath the moon
To beauty I awake.

Oh! hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us
And black are the waters that sparkled so green.
The moon, O'er the combers, looks downward to find us
At rest in the hollows that rustle between.
Where billow meets billow, there soft by the pillow.
Oh, weary wee flipperling, curl at thy ease!
The storm shall not wake thee, no shark shall overtake thee
Asleep in the storm of slow-swinging seas.

In many a shape and fleeting apparition,
Sublime in age or with clear morning eyes,
Ever I seek thee, tantalising Vision,
Which beckoning flies.

Ever I seek Thee, O evasive Presence,
Which on the far horizon's utmost verge,
Like some wild star in luminous evanescence,
Shoots o'er the surge.

Ever I seek Thy features ever flying,
Which ne'er beheld I never can forget:
Lightning which flames through love, and mimics dying
In souls that set.

Ever I seek Thee through all clouds of error;