To the Moon
With musing mind I watch thee steal
Above those envious clouds that hid
Till now thy face; thou dost reveal
More than the glaring sunlight did;
So round me would I have thy light
In one broad sea of beauty lie,
And who, while thou dost rule the night,
For day would sigh,
Nor long for wings that he might flee
To find thy hidden face and ride the dark with thee?
And hence it was that ever forth
My fancy doated more and more
Upon the wild poetic worth
Of that old tale in Grecian lore,
Which to the head of Latmos gave
Supernal glories, passion-won
By him who, in the mystic cave—
Endymion—
Was wont to meet thee night by night,
And drink into his soul the spirit of thy light.
Not thus it was thy beauty shone
In these drear summers lately past;
Disheartened, world-distrusting, lone,
I shuddered in misfortune’s blast!
Many that loved me, once were nigh
Of whom now these I may not trust,
And those forget me—or they lie
Dark in the dust!
And never can we meet again,
Loving and loved as then, beneath thy friendly reign.
O Cynthia! It would even seem
That portions from our spirits fell,
Like scent from flowers, throughout life’s dream;
And by that clue invisible,
A gathered after-scene of all
Affection builded high in vain,
Is drawn thus in dim funeral
Past us again;
The which, where shadowed most with gloom,
Uncertain thought is fain to map with spells of doom.
Let me this night the past forget,
For though its dying voices be
At times like tones from Eden, yet
The years have brought such change for me
That when but now my thoughts were given
To all I’d suffered, loved, and lost,
Turning my eyes again to heaven,
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poem by Charles Harpur
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