The shorn moon trembling indistinct on her path, <br />Frail as a scar upon the pale blue sky, <br />Draws towards the downward slope: some sorrow hath <br />Worn her down to the quick, so she faintly fares <br />Along her foot-searched way without knowing why <br />She creeps persistent down the sky’s long stairs. <br /> <br />Some day they see, though I have never seen, <br />The dead moon heaped within the new moon’s arms; <br />For surely the fragile, fine young thing had been <br />Too heavily burdened to mount the heavens so. <br />But my heart stands still, as a new, strong dread alarms <br />Me; might a young girl be heaped with such shadow of woe? <br /> <br />Since Death from the mother moon has pared us down to the quick, <br />And cast us forth like shorn, thin moons, to travel <br />An uncharted way among the myriad thick <br />Strewn stars of silent people, and luminous litter <br />Of lives which sorrows like mischievous dark mice chavel <br />To nought, diminishing each star’s glitter, <br /> <br />Since Death has delivered us utterly, naked and white, <br />Since the month of childhood is over, and we stand alone, <br />Since the beloved, faded moon that set us alight <br />Is delivered from us and pays no heed though we moan <br />In sorrow, since we stand in bewilderment, strange <br />And fearful to sally forth down the sky’s long range. <br /> <br />We may not cry to her still to sustain us here, <br />We may not hold her shadow back from the dark. <br />Oh, let us here forget, let us take the sheer <br />Unknown that lies before us, bearing the ark <br />Of the covenant onwards where she cannot go. <br />Let us rise and leave her now, she will never know.<br /><br />David Herbert Lawrence<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/brother-and-sister-4/
