THE MOON IN JANUARY

Sharp and straight are the scaffold poles,

Black on a delicate sky;

Upright they stand, across they lie,

In changeless angles fixed and bound,

The sunset light in mist is drowned,

And the moon has risen high;

High above houses, high and clear

Above the scaffolding,

So exquisite, so faint a thing,

The young moon's silver curve that shines

Above the fretting, tangled lines,

With the old moon in her ring.

The young moon holds the old black moon

In a sky all grey with frost,

By cable wires barred and crossed,

And below, the haze of purplish-brown

Smokes upward from the lamp-lit town

Where outlines all are lost.

The pure pale arch of windless sky,

The pure bright young moon's thread,

These wide and still are overhead;

And in the dusky glare below

The lamps go dotting, row on row,

And there is movement, to and fro,

Where far the pavements spread.