* * *

Bleak day has petered out. The bleak night soon
Puts out a leaden garment on the sky.
The thickets full of earthly pine now lie
Before a spectral moon.
My soul grows dark with what it all portends.
Yonder afar a brighter moon ascends
Through warmth that saturates the evening air;
The sea like a luxurious carpet there
Stirs under bluer skies...
It is the time: straight down the hill she runs
Toward the shoreline where the sea intones.
Out there beneath our hallowed stones
She sits alone and with her grief, and cries.
She is alone... and wrings a tear from none.
None kiss her knees in sweet oblivion;
She is alone...to none will she surrender
Her shoulders, her moist lip or snowy breast.
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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
None worth the holy way she might have loved.
I know you weep alone... and am unmoved.
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But if . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .