GRACIOUS MOONLIGHT

Even as the moon grows queenlier in mid-space

When the sky darkens, and her cloud-rapt car

Thrills with intenser radiance from afar,—

So lambent, lady, beams thy sovereign grace

When the drear soul desires thee. Of that face

What shall be said,— which, like a governing star,

Gathers and garners from all things that are

Their silent penetrative loveliness?

O'er water-daisies and wild waifs of Spring,

There where the iris rears its gold-crowned sheaf

With flowering rush and sceptred arrow-leaf,

So have I marked Queen Dian, in bright ring

Of cloud above and wave below, take wing

And chase night's gloom, as thou the spirit's grief.