Page:Eight Harvard Poets.djvu/51

 NIGHT PIECE

SILVER web has the moon spun, A silver web upon all the sky, Where the frail stars quiver, every one Like tangled gnats that hum and die.

The moon has tangled the dull night In her silver skein and set alight Each dew-damp branch with milky flame. And huge the moon broods on the night.

My soul is caught in the web of the moon, Like a shrilling gnat in a spider's web. Importunate memories shrill in my ears Like the gnats that die in the spider web.

Lovely as death, in the moon's shroud, Were town streets, grey houses, dim, Full of strange peace in the silent night. As we walked our footsteps clattered loud. We felt the night as a troubled song &hellip; Oh, the triumphing sense of life a-throb, Behind those walls, in those dark streets, Like the sound of a river, swift, unseen, Flowing in darkness. Oh, the hoarse 40