 | The Poetical Works of John Payne |  |
SILENTIA LUNÆ.
IT seemed to me, this night of many nights,What time the moon lay full on wood and lea,
That over all my life there spread one sea
Of pearl; and thereupon the mirrored lights
Of the soft stars shone out like petal-whites
Of gold-heart lilies, floating waveringly
Upon the clear moon-silences. Ah me!
168
Of old, that we have steeped our love by-past
In the white peace of night, that we have cast
Our twinned souls out with kisses and with tears
Upon the flooding moon,—that haply we
Should with joined hands yet rescue from the sea
Some sweetness of the irrevocable years?
| The Poetical Works of John Payne | |