y emerald ocean-robes flow free,
And purple soar my mountains, folds on folds,
With vale and plain. My bondmaid Moon to me
Reveals her marbled snow in cusp and shale--
Whilst in my flinty womb the valiant strife
Of Fire proclaims me thine and bans the pale
Usurper Death beyond my fields of Life.
In Winds that wrap my path, lo, I shall sing
To thee a choral eternal, Lord of Days,
And Life with myriad hearts in me shall sing
Thy glory to scan forever, and chant thy praise.

The wrinkled Moon, charred by the fires of her brief youth, sits
serene above the rose-blown round of Earth.

Like an aged beldam she crouches in the heavens, ashes upon
her head, weaving her ancient silver magic, spelling enchantment
upon the nether Sea.

She is a sybil in whom the wisdom of the worlds is garnered up.
Her eyelids are heavy with the poppy.

She smiles and spins in sunlight and in shadow, weaving robes
of slumber for her mistress. She holds her shining disk on
high as a mirror for her queen.

Her song is such as the watchers sing that sit by the couches
of birth and death.

SONG OF THE MOON

THE silvern mistress of the golden Sun,
The milk-white sister to the wine-red Earth,
My lord still smiles upon me, nor will shun
My face for hers of younger, fairer birth.
Though oft her fruitful beauty glides between
And robs me of his countenance, I will
Ne'er hate her, but yield up my borrowed sheen
To make her hallowed nights more hallowed still.
Burn then, my pale and vestal flame, make fair
The nuptials of the amorous Earth with night!
My sickle reaps the lurking stars in air,
My argent shield hangs lucent on the height.
Yet he that chafes and wounds the Earthen shores,
And flees though she embrace--the yearning Sea,--
Is shackled by my smiling and implores
My chaster, colder kiss and mounts to me.
With pearls of white enchantment I bestrew
The happy realms where lovers hunt their bliss;
My ray is pale as frost and soft as dew;
My path is woven in snow through the abyss.

The ambient fluid of the Winds is born, Air is born, invisible
Element, felt yet unfeeling. The fissure of the lightning leaves
it unwounded, the destroying tempest undestroyed.

It is the bath of the girdled Earth, perfumed with balms and
essences. It is the crystal shell whereunder Earth ripens like a
fruit.

The light Winds sing as they roll in their courses, weaving the
bland and passi