Moon Bay

TOO soon the sunset comes; too soon
Opens the night its curious eyes,
Greedy to watch the maiden moon
Unloose her silver draperies

And walk upon the star-flowered fields.
Her cloudy garments one by one
To waiting winds she slowly yields,
And now, her last disrobing done,

Flashes lithe limbs across the sky
And flaunts the cold and slender grace
Of unconcerned virginity.
O now before her smiling grace

A thousand rivers, lakes and seas
Hold up their mirrors to her gaze:
A thousand moonlets there she sees
Float on a thousand starry ways.

Beneath her footfall light and free
The peeping star follows shake and fall;
Cold as her watery mirrors, she
Drinks admiration from them all.

In them her nakedness she views,
In love with her own limbs displayed,
And through the wondering night pursues
Her strange unreasonable parade.

Gerald Miller