Summer’s Last Moon

(Reflections on seeing her setting over Big Spring creek.)

Maxfield Parrish, New Moon

The moon is young tonight; a graceful bow
Of silver light, she swings flirtatiously
Low in the western sky by one white arm,
Stroking the trees and smiling graciously 
At all the world. Behind her slender form
A glowing August sunset lingers still;
Day’s fire is gone, but still the hearth is warm.
Long wisps of cloud drift wide above the hill
All steely-gray, their farther edges bright
Like threads of liquid gold the evening’s chill
Has not yet cooled. Beyond the edge of sight
The sun she lags behind pursues his way
Nor waits for her, who borrows from his light,
Yet dallies now above the trees to play.
Tomorrow’s eve will find her crescent grown
And later, while a fortnight hence the day
Will see the sun traverse the sky alone.
But while his afterglow still haunts the west
She’ll slip into the starry dome he’s flown—
His fire reflected from her full-orbed breast
To touch with silver light the mist that floats
Among the houses where the farm-folk rest
And shimmers on the hillside, where the notes 
Of whippoorwill and cricket blend in song—
Then let fall the horizon, as she gloats
The sky is hers to dance in, all night long!
Glimmering she’ll shine through the late-summer haze
On new-mown fields, where rabbits play among
The scattered bales of hay, and young deer graze
Beside the tasseled rows of standing corn.
At midnight, riding high, she’ll stoop to gaze 
At her own round reflection, lightly borne
On a lake’s placid surface. Maidenly
She’ll pause, admire—then, suddenly forlorn,
A pang of loneliness compellingly
May turn her wayward thoughts, perchance, at last 
To her own star, who journeys patiently
Around the earth, yet ceases not to cast
His faithful rays from far beyond the globe
To warm her bosom, though the void is vast
That now divides them. Just as ancient Job
Still loved his wayward wife and sought her best,
So the warm sun still flings his silver robe
About her cold, white shoulders, to attest
That though she stands aloof, with all the world 
Between them, yet he longs to see her blest. 
The thought may make her blush, if such a pearl
Could blush. Then, when the dawn comes, faint and pale,
She’ll sink behind the mountains, as a girl 
Turns from her lover, knowing, without fail,
He’ll follow. Day by day, as he draws near
She’ll turn her face to him, and wrap her veil
Of darkness ever closer to obscure
Her fulsome figure from terrestrial eyes,
While to his shining face she’ll let appear 
That side of her he only ever sees.
Basking in his bright blaze, she’ll know that this
Is what she longs for, him she longs to please.
At last he’ll overtake her—O what bliss!
The curtain drawn, hidden from all below,
His blinding rays about her as they kiss,
She’ll yield herself to his embrace, and so
Return his clasp, clinging tenaciously.