Sonnet

THERE are strange shadows fostered of the moon,

More numerous than the clear-cut shade of day.…

Go forth, when all the leaves whisper of June,

Into the dusk of swooping bats at play;

Or go into that late November dusk

When hills take on the noble lines of death,

And on the air the faint, astringent musk

Of rotting leaves pours vaguely troubling breath.

Then shall you see shadows whereof the sun,

Knows nothing—aye, a thousand shadows there

Shall leap and flicker and stir and stay and run,

Like petrels of the changing foul or fair;

Like ghosts of twilight, of the moon, of him

Whose homeland lies past each horizon’s rim.…