August Night / Sara Teasdale

August Night

On a midsummer night, on a night that was eerie with stars,
In a wood too deep for a single star to look through,
You led down a path whose turnings you knew in the darkness,
But the scent of the dew-dripping cedars was all that I knew.

I drank of the darkness, I was fed with the honey of fragrance,
I was glad of my life, the drawing of breath was sweet;
I heard your voice, you said, 'Look down, see the glow-worm!'
It was there before me, a small star white at my feet.

We watched while it brightened as though it were breathed on and burning,
This tiny creature moving over earth's floor --
"L'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle,"
You said, and no more.

---
Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)
from Dark of the Moon, 1926

L11 - "The love  that moves the sun and other stars" - Dante, Paradiso

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the European Union]

Sara Teasdale biography