Poems (Jenkins)/Moonlight
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For works with similar titles, see Moonlight.
Moonlight
EVEN as walk on middle earth
The shades of the unquiet dead
That loathe the graves allotted them from birth
And wander without end, uncomforted;
So the dead moon, poor restless rover
That died by fire, long, long ago,
Wanders forlorn the steeps of heaven over;
With death's despair and life's outwearied woe
She journeys, a reluctant lustre giving
To this world's throbbing life and strong,
And, being dead, envieth all things living,
And sheds a passing death her beams along.
To that weird corpse-light worse than dark,
All fair things for a little die;
The spell-bound earth lies, colourless and stark,
Beneath the wan ghost witch's jealous eye.
The shades of the unquiet dead
That loathe the graves allotted them from birth
And wander without end, uncomforted;
So the dead moon, poor restless rover
That died by fire, long, long ago,
Wanders forlorn the steeps of heaven over;
With death's despair and life's outwearied woe
She journeys, a reluctant lustre giving
To this world's throbbing life and strong,
And, being dead, envieth all things living,
And sheds a passing death her beams along.
To that weird corpse-light worse than dark,
All fair things for a little die;
The spell-bound earth lies, colourless and stark,
Beneath the wan ghost witch's jealous eye.