Page:American Poetry 1922.djvu/191



"This is the hour," she said, "of transmutation: It is the eucharist of the evening, changing All things to beauty. Now the ancient river, That all day under the arch was polished jade, Becomes the ghost of a river, thinly gleaming Under a silver cloud. . . . It is not water: It is that azure stream in which the stars Bathe at the daybreak, and become immortal. . . ." "And the moon," said I—not thus to be outdone— "What of the moon? Over the dusty plane-trees Which crouch in the dusk above their feeble lanterns, Each coldly lighted by his tiny faith; The moon, the waxen moon, now almost full, Creeps whitely up. . . . Westward the waves of cloud, Vermilion, crimson, violet, stream on the air, Shatter to golden flakes in the icy green Translucency of twilight. . . . And the moon Drinks up their light, and as they fade or darken, Brightens. . . . O monstrous miracle of the twilight, That one should live because the others die!" "Strange too," she answered, "that upon this azure Pale-gleaming ghostly stream, impalpable— So faint, so fine that scarcely it bears up The petals that the lantern strews upon it,— These great black barges float like apparitions, Loom in the silver of it, beat upon it, 177