Edgar Fawcett (1847–1904)

I SAW the immense moon rise beyond a sweep

Of shadowy sea whose waves were softly curled;

I watched the reddening splendor she unfurled

By dreamy and rich gradations landward creep.

Dark pines that fluttering breezes roused from sleep,

Long meadows where the illumined dew lay pearled,

The expectant air, the vast encircling world,

All thrilled with eagerness divinely deep!

Days afterward I roamed that same fair shore;

Bright surges broke on rocks with mellow roar;

Both earth and ocean laughed with golden noon.

But faintly, in opal distances of sky,

Like a bowed shape that crawls away to die

Where none shall heed, I saw the old withered moon!