University of Virginia Library


36

MOONLIGHT

Southward a silvery dream-world lies,
Fading at last into Fairyland;
Northward beneath the moonlit skies
Clear-cut and cold the mountains stand.
Sable-black on a field of snow
The shadows fall from the dark-massed trees;—
Motionless all,—so lightly blow
The languid airs of the midnight breeze.
The world has vanished, I know not where,—
The busy world with its warmth and light:
The stars are hidden: the skies are bare:
The moon and I are alone to-night.
I glide no more with life's rushing stream,
But, moored awhile in some inlet deep,—
Some windless channel where shadows dream,—
I float, forgetful of all but sleep.
Dear is the sunlit realm of life;
Dark is the starlit world of death:—
But beyond the frontiers of toil and strife
There's a land where life suspends its breath;—

37

Where pain and passion are lulled to rest;
Where love is languor and joy repose;
Where the riddle of death is still unguessed,
But life forgets that its day must close;—
A land that is bathed in Lethe's dew;—
A land that lies in a trancëd swoon;—
A land whose heaven of cloudless blue
Is the throne of the white-robed lonely moon.