As I walked out one harvest night <br />About the stroke of One, <br />The Moon attained to her full height <br />Stood beaming like the Sun. <br />She exorcised the ghostly wheat <br />To mute assent in Love's defeat <br />Whose tryst had now begun. <br /> <br />The fields lay sick beneath my tread, <br />A tedious owlet cried; <br />The nightingale above my head <br />With this or that replied, <br />Like man and wife who nightly keep <br />Inconsequent debate in sleep <br />As they dream side by side. <br /> <br />Your phantom wore the moon's cold mask, <br />My phantom wore the same, <br />Forgetful of the feverish task <br />In hope of which they came, <br />Each image held the other's eyes <br />And watched a grey distraction rise <br />To cloud the eager flame. <br /> <br />To cloud the eager flame of love, <br />To fog the shining gate: <br />They held the tyrannous queen above <br />Sole mover of their fate, <br />They glared as marble statues glare <br />Across the tessellated stair <br />Or down the Halls of State. <br /> <br />And now cold earth was Arctic sea, <br />Each breath came dagger keen, <br />Two bergs of glinting ice were we, <br />The broad moon sailed between; <br />There swam the mermaids, tailed and finned, <br />And Love went by upon the wind <br />As though it had not been.<br /><br />Robert Graves<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/full-moon-25/
