Classic Poem

Moonlight and music and the sound of waves
Reached out and held us there;
Each close to each,
Upon the night blurred and deserted beach.
She sang an old, imperishable air
Softly … and from forgotten graves
A mist of memories arose
As if in answer to an unspoken call.
A soft and intimate breeze
Crooned over us and over all
The blue and faintly-singing spaces;
Over the quiet and the salty balm,
Over the velvet skies and seas,
Over our half-concealed and cloudy faces.
That strange and rosy wind
Mellowed the distance; smoothing down the thinned,
Sharp edges of the sickle-moon;
Bringing the night so close
That when our fingers clasped
We grasped and held its greatness and calm
Warmly within each palm.

And, as her head drooped back,
And the breath of the world came slower,
A drowsy voice grew out of the black
Night as her voice sank lower.
Something caught her unspoken word,
It answered and mingled with her;
Their breathing blended and I heard
The voice of Sleep and her sleepy voice
Singing together. . .

The wind crept up on the sands and stopped;
The voices dropped.
Our fingers loosened; the night imposed
The weight of all sleepers upon us and closed
Our heavy eyes.

Then, as we lay,
I stretched my arm into the skies
And plunged it through that shining spray,
Pushing my shoulders through the cloudy bars,
And grasped the moon like a scythe.
I flung my swaying body in a lithe
And rhythmic play,
Cutting down great, wide swathes of stars;
Reaping the heavens with a blithe
Song till the blue fields were bare.
Then, when the last gold bud was shaken free
And all the silver flowers of the night
Had rained and heaped about her there,
I threw the bright blade into the sea.

There was a hissing and an end of light.
And we slept—dreamlessly.