When Yon Full Moon / W.H. Davies

When Yon Full Moon

When yon full moon's with her white fleet of stars,
   And but one bird makes music in the grove;
When you and I are breathing side by side,
   Where our two bodies make one shadow, love;

Not for her beauty will I praise the moon,

   But that she lights thy purer face and throat;

The only praise I'll give the nightingale

   Is that she draws from thee a richer note.

For, blinded with thy beauty, I am filled,

   Like Saul of Tarsus, with a greater light;

When he had heard that warning voice in Heaven,

   And lost his eyes to find a deeper sight.

Come, let us sit in that deep silence then,

   Launched on love's rapids, with our passions proud,

That makes all music hollow – though the lark

   Raves in his windy heights above a cloud.

~~

W.H. Davies (1871-1940)

from Georgian Poetry 1918-1919, 1919

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

W.H. Davies biography