Classic Poem

I stand at twilight gazing from my window,
The tall, green-shuttered houses
Of the old quarter—subdued and reticent,
Aloof as those who dwell within,
Stand opposite and steadily
Through downcast eyelids, sleepily
Return my stare. No spark of light
Yet glows in the deep, rounded eyes;
Night has not come.

High up at one small window,
In a gable just beneath the sky,
A pale-faced woman bends laboriously
Upon the glass, and with a cloth
Rubs the thick dust away.
Suddenly, from behind her gable
Glides the full, the white-faced moon,—
So close that she must touch it
Should she turn and reach. … She sees it not.
A moment and it clears the housetops,
Brightens on the tinted sky of twilight,
Swims into the pure and deepening heaven!

O, Moon—pale, burnished moon of the soft twilight,—
Most loyal and of all the stars best loved!
Would mortals pause to breathe thy calm benignance,
Could warring men perceive this thy perfection,
Thou, like yonder weary woman in the gable,
Shouldst brush from out their eyes all dust of hate,
And from their cabin'd souls shouldst purge away
All fever, all unkindness, all corruption!