Tonight the moon, by languorous memories obsessed
Lies pensive and awake: a sleepless beauty amid
The tossed and multitudinous cushions of her bed
Caressing with an abstracted hand the curve of her breast

Surrendered to her deep sadness as to a lover, for hours
She lolls in the bright luxurious disarray of the sky —
Haggard, entranced — and watches the small clouds float by
Uncurling indolently in the blue air like flowers

When now and then upon this planet she lets fall
Out of her idleness and sorrow, a secret tear
Some poet — an enemy of slumber, musing apart —

Catches in his cupped hands the unearthly tribute, all
Fiery and iridescent like an opal's sphere
And hides it from the sun for ever in his heart