There were seven nights of the moon
This August, beloved.
There were nights before the seven
When we scarcely saw the moon,
Or perhaps as we canoed, ere the sun sank,
We saw her as a transparent tissue of white
Against a sky as white.
But when we first saw the moon
She had risen before the sun had sunk.
Then the next night she was brighter
With the evening planet above her,
Despite the tongues of fire in the west
Where the sun had set on fire
Great coils of cloud!
And then there were those nights between
Her growth and her o’erflowing fullness
When hand in hand we walked in your garden
Amid the Chinese balloons and coreopsis,
Hibiscus, marigold, hydrangeas,
Under the rose arches,
And by the hedge of California privet,
And looked at the lake,
And the moon in the sky
And the moon on the lake.

And do you remember what we saw
As we stared at the wake of the moon
On the lake?
The ripples made blacknesses,
And the moon made silver splendors,
And as we stared we saw
In the shadows of waves
Running into the light of the moon on the water
Youths and maids and children
Coming from darkness into the light in a dance,
Joining hands, falling into embraces,
Hurrying to evanishment at the path of light
Where the moon had paved the water.
I shall never see the moon on the water
Without seeing these youths and maids and children,
And without thinking of that night
Of the full moon!

This was the night
We saw the moon rise, from the very first,
Across the lake o’ertopping the forest.
A spire of pine stood up
Against a sky made pale as of the northern lights.
But in a moment a bit of fire lit the spire of the pine
As it were a candle lighted.
And she rose so fast that I took my watch
To time the rising of the moon
Free and clear of the spire.
And she rose so fast that as we gazed
She cleared the spire,
And soared with such silent glory above the forest,
And sailed to the southwest of the spire.
And at that moment the whippoorwills
Began to sing in the woodlands near—
We had not heard them before in all this summer.
And we stood in the loggia
In the silence of our own thoughts,
In the silence of the full moon!

And it was then that the pressure of your hand
Gave me a meaning of sorrow.
It was then that the pressure of your hand
Spoke, as flame which turns in the wind,
Of a change in your heart.
But if not a change, of another’s heart
Toward whom you turned.

And I sit in the loggia to-night
Waiting for the moon to rise,
She will not rise till midnight,
And then she will rise, a poor half wreck of herself.
No whippoorwill has sung to-night,
And none will sing.
And if there are youths and maids and children
Hurrying into the dance on the water,
Embracing and fading in light,
I shall not see.
No, in this darkness where I breathe
The scent of the sweet alyssum
Which you planted and tended
I shall wait for midnight,
And the rise of our ruined moon.

In the darkness of the loggia
Under a sky that hopes for no moon to-night,
Save the wasted moon of midnight,
I am filled with a deep happiness
And a thankfulness to the Power
Behind the sky:
I am filled with a joy as wide and deep as nature
That my love for you
Can live without your love for me,
And asks nothing of you,
And nothing for you
Save that you find what you seek!