ANIMA LUNAE 
I25 
 
So mused the king.  Mark you, the full moon shone ! 
Nay, but a little past the full, she rose 
An hour past sunset :  as some laughter gone, 
After the bride’s night, lost in subtler snows 
Rosy with wifehood.  Now the shallop glides 
On gloomier shadier tides, 
While the long hair of willows bent and kissed 
The stream, and drew its mist 
Up through their silent atmosphere. 
Some sorrow drawing near 
That slow, dark river would for sympathy 
Have found its home and never wandered out 
Into the sunlight any more.  A sigh 
Stirred the pale waters where the moonlight stood 
Upon the sleepy flood 
In certain bough-wrought shapes of mystic meaning, 
As if the moon were weaning 
The king her babe from milk of life and love 
To milk new-dropped above 
From her sweet breast in vaporous light 
Into the willowy night 
That lay upon the river.  So the king 
Heard a strange chant—the woods began to sing ; 
The river took the tune ; the willows kept 
Time ; and the black skies wept 
Those tears, those blossoms, those pearl drops of 
milk 
That the moon shed :  and looking up he saw, 
As if the willows were but robes of silk, 
The moon’s face stoop and draw