Classic Poem

Ah! Moon of my delight, in gardens glimmering,
So old and scarr'd, so ever fresh, so new!
Thou, Friend, and I spend many a night together,
I hail thy coming, grieve thy waning, Moon!
White Moon who risest now above my lilacs,
Gold Moon who dreamest low upon the twilight,
Thou watched the rise of man and his dominion,
Held spellbound in a long adoring thraldom,
By our great ageless mother, the dear Earth.
Thou, Moon, it was who, burnish'd bright in heaven,
Illumining the deep Egyptian night,
Etched thine own silver self in the wide Nile,
And smiled to see the children of Osiris,
Rearing upon the sands their brooding Sphinx;
And thou it was who, newly risen, shone
Upon the brandish'd steel of Troy and Phillippi,
Who shed a glory on the holy place
Where Socrates, the night his friend lay dead,
Went up in majesty to speak his grief,
And from the gleaming porch of the Acropolis,
Companion'd only by the form of Pallas
Imperially gazing on the stars,
Cried out unto the far, soft-sounding sea,—
The Siren-voic'd,—the shimmering Aegean.

Dim centuries retire . . Still was it thou
Who hung above the field of Agincourt,
And curving on the deepening sky of France
Saw old barbaric hosts of swarthy men
Rolled back into the south in blood-red war,
Went white upon the night of Catharine's deed
When she through Paris loos'd her damnèd fiends!
So in thy sleepless vigil hast thou seen
Of man's and evolution's tragic way
The whole. How long shalt thou be forced to gaze
Upon the needless grief of blundering men?
How long, sad Moon, will frenzied nations rend
The earth's fair face and blind themselves with blood?

From out the madness of a tortured world,
Heart-heavy and brain-sick we turn to thee—
O, sane and rhythmèd, poised and thoughtful Moon!
Thou who couldst feed the souls of lordlier men,
Of Zoroaster, Buddha and the rest,
Who lingered with Endymion on the steep,—
Thou confidante of lovers of all time,—
Ah! Moon of my delight in gardens glimmering,
Soft-glowing here upon this pool of flowers,
Soar ever on under the spangled heaven,
Ride high into the dawn—I ride with thee!