The Moonlight

- 1900-1968

I waited on
In the late autumn moonlight,
A train droning out of thought—

The mind on moonlight
And on trains.

Blind as a thread of water
Stirring through a cold like dust,
Lonely beyond all silence

And humming this to children,
The nostalgic listeners in sleep,

Because no guardian
Strides through distance upon distance,
His eyes a web of sleep.

The Magpie's Shadow

I. IN WINTER
 
     Myself
Pale mornings, and 
   I rise. 
 
     Still Morning
Snow air--my fingers curl.
 
     Awakening
New snow, O pine of dawn!
 
     Winter Echo
Thin air! My mind is gone.
 
     The Hunter
Run! In the magpie's shadow.
 
     No Being
I, bent. Thin nights receding. 
 
 
II. IN SPRING
 
     Spring
I walk out the world's door.
 
     May
Oh, evening in my hair!
 
     Spring Rain
My doorframe smells of leaves.
 
     Song
Why should I stop
   for spring?
 
 
III. IN SUMMER AND AUTUMN
 
     Sunrise
Pale bees! O whither now?
 
     Fields
I did not pick
   a flower.
 
     At Evening
Like leaves my feet passed by.
 
     Cool Nights
At night bare feet on flowers!
 
     Sleep
Like winds my eyelids close.
 
     The Aspen's Song
The summer holds me here.
 
     The Walker
In dream my feet are still. 
 
     Blue Mountains
A deer walks that mountain.
 
     God of Roads
I, peregrine of noon. 
 
     September
Faint gold! O think not here.
 
     A Lady
She's sun on autumn leaves. 
 
     Alone
I saw day's shadow strike.
 
     A Deer
The trees rose in the dawn.
 
     Man in Desert
His feet run as eyes blink. 
 
     Desert
The tented autumn, gone!
 
     The End
Dawn rose, and desert shrunk.
 
     High Valleys
In sleep I filled these lands.
 
     Awaiting Snow
The well of autumn--dry.

Related Poems

Moonlight

It will not hurt me when I am old,
     A running tide where moonlight burned
          Will not sting me like silver snakes;
The years will make me sad and cold,
          It is the happy heart that breaks.

The heart asks more than life can give,
     When that is learned, then all is learned;
          The waves break fold on jewelled fold,
But beauty itself is fugitive,
          It will not hurt me when I am old.

Often I Am Permitted to Return to a Meadow

as if it were a scene made-up by the mind, 
that is not mine, but is a made place,

that is mine, it is so near to the heart, 
an eternal pasture folded in all thought 
so that there is a hall therein

that is a made place, created by light 
wherefrom the shadows that are forms fall.

Wherefrom fall all architectures I am 
I say are likenesses of the First Beloved 
whose flowers are flames lit to the Lady.

She it is Queen Under The Hill
whose hosts are a disturbance of words within words 
that is a field folded.

It is only a dream of the grass blowing 
east against the source of the sun 
in an hour before the sun's going down

whose secret we see in a children's game 
of ring a round of roses told.

Often I am permitted to return to a meadow 
as if it were a given property of the mind 
that certain bounds hold against chaos,

that is a place of first permission,
everlasting omen of what is.

The Dreamer

The night comes down, in ever-darkening shapes that seem—
To grope, with eerie fingers for the window—then—
To rest to sleep, enfolding me, as in a dream
            Faith—might I awaken!
 
And drips the rain with seeming sad, insistent beat.
Shivering across the pane, drooping tear-wise,
And softly patters by, like little fearing feet.
            Faith—this weather!
 
The feathery ash is fluttered; there upon the pane,—
The dying fire casts a flickering ghostly beam,—
Then closes in the night and gently falling rain.
            Faith—what darkness!