Read Ebook: Dark of the Moon by Teasdale Sara

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Ebook has 178 lines and 18074 words, and 4 pages

AN END 79

FOREKNOWN 80

WINTER 81

WINTER NIGHT SONG 82

NEVER AGAIN 83

THE TUNE 84

"WHEN I AM NOT WITH YOU" 88

DEDICATION 89

ON A MARCH DAY 90

LET IT BE YOU 91

THE FLIGHT 92

THERE WILL BE STARS

Over the downs there were birds flying, Far off glittered the sea, And toward the north the weald of Sussex Lay like a kingdom under me.

It was not you, though you were near, Though you were good to hear and see, It was not earth, it was not heaven It was myself that sang in me.

On a midsummer night, on a night that was eerie with stars, In a wood too deep for a single star to look through, You led down a path whose turnings you knew in the darkness, But the scent of the dew-dripping cedars was all that I knew.

I drank of the darkness, I was fed with the honey of fragrance, I was glad of my life, the drawing of breath was sweet; I heard your voice, you said, "Look down, see the glow-worm!" It was there before me, a small star white at my feet.

Your mind and mine are such great lovers they Have freed themselves from cautious human clay, And on wild clouds of thought, naked together They ride above us in extreme delight; We see them, we look up with a lone envy And watch them in their zone of crystal weather That changes not for winter or the night.

Your heart is bound tightly, let Beauty beware, It is not hers to set Free from the snare.

Tell her a bleeding hand Bound it and tied it, Tell her the knot will stand Though she deride it;

One who withheld so long All that you yearned to take, Has made a snare too strong For Beauty's self to break.

You have taken a drink from a wild fountain Early in the year; There is nowhere to go from the top of a mountain But down, my dear; And the springs that flow on the floor of the valley Will never seem fresh or clear For thinking of the glitter of the mountain water In the feathery green of the year.

Iseult, Iseult, by the long waterways Watching the wintry moon, white as a flower, I have remembered how once in Tintagil You heard the tread of Time hour after hour.

The ache of empty arms was an old tale to you, And all the tragic tunes that love can play, Yet with no woman born would you have changed your lot, Though there were greater queens who had been gay.

There will be stars over the place forever; Though the house we loved and the street we loved are lost, Every time the earth circles her orbit On the night the autumn equinox is crossed, Two stars we knew, poised on the peak of midnight Will reach their zenith; stillness will be deep; There will be stars over the place forever, There will be stars forever, while we sleep.

PICTURES OF AUTUMN

I shall remember only these leaves falling Small and incessant in the still air, Yellow leaves on the dark green water resting And the marble Venus there-- Is she pointing to her breasts or trying to hide them? There is no god to care.

The colonnade curves close to the leaf-strewn water And its reflection seems Lost in the mass of leaves and unavailing As a dream lost among dreams; The colonnade curves close to the leaf-strewn water A dream lost among dreams.

The Seine flows out of the mist And into the mist again; The trees lean over the water, The small leaves fall like rain.

The leaves fall patiently, Nothing remembers or grieves; The river takes to the sea The yellow drift of the leaves.

Milky and cold is the air, The leaves float with the stream, The river comes out of a sleep And goes away in a dream.

Interminable palaces front on the green parterres, And ghosts of ladies lovely and immoral Glide down the gilded stairs, The high cold corridors are clicking with the heel taps That long ago were theirs.

But in the sunshine, in the vague autumn sunshine, The geometric gardens are desolatnittakoon "Ulysses fraaon and scarlet and rose-red dahlias Are painted like the ladies who used to pass this way With a ringletted monarch, a Henry or a Louis On a lost October day.

The aisles of the garden lead into the forest, The aisles lead into autumn, a damp wind grieves, Ghostly kings are hunting, the boar breaks cover, But the sounds of horse and horn are hushed in falling leaves, Four centuries of autumns, four centuries of leaves.

Listen, the damp leaves on the walks are blowing With a ghost of sound; Is it a fog or is it a rain dripping From the low trees to the ground?

If I had gone before, I could have remembered Lilacs and green after-noons of May; I chose to wait, I chose to hear from autumn Whatever she has to say.

SAND DRIFT

Careless forever, beautiful proud sea, You laugh in happy thunder all alone, You fold upon yourself, you dance your dance Impartially on drift-weed, sand or stone.

You make us believe that we can outlive death, You make us for an instant, for your sake, Burn, like stretched silver of a wave, Not breaking, but about to break.

The shores of the world are ours, the solitary Beaches that bear no fruit, nor any flowers, Only the harsh sea-grass that the wind harries Hours on unbroken hours.

No one will envy us these empty reaches At the world's end, and none will care that we Leave our lost footprints where the sand forever Takes the unchanging passion of the sea.

I thought I should not walk these dunes again, Nor feel the sting of this wind-bitten sand, Where the coarse grasses always blow one way, Bent, as my thoughts are, by an unseen hand.

I have returned; where the last wave rushed up The wet sand is a mirror for the sky A bright blue instant, and along its sheen The nimble sandpipers run twinkling by.

Nothing has changed; with the same hollow thunder The waves die in their everlasting snow-- Only the place we sat is drifted over, Lost in the blowing sand, long, long ago.

If we took the old path In the old field The same gate would stand there That will never yield.

Where the sun warmed us With a cloak made of gold, The rain would be falling And the wind would be cold;

We walked in the dew, in the drowsy starlight To the sleepless, sleepy sound Of insects singing in the low sea-meadows For miles and miles around; With a wheel and a whirr the resistless rhythm Trembled incessantly; Antares was red in the sky before us, And behind us, the blackness of the sea.

The birds are gathering over the dunes, Swerving and wheeling in shifting flight, A thousand wings sweep darkly by Over the dunes and out of sight.

Why did you bring me down to the sea With the gathering birds and the fish-hawk flying, The tide is low and the wind is hard, Nothing is left but the old year dying.

I wish I were one of the gathering birds, Two sharp black wings would be good for me-- When nothing is left but the old year dying, Why did you bring me down to the sea?

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