Poems (Allen)/Karl

by Elizabeth Chase Allen

KARL.

P the sky in silence holy
Comes the young moon slowly, slowly,
  Softly with her light divine,
  Filling, like a cup with wine.

On the broad bay falls her lustre,
Where the anchored vessels cluster,
  While their sails gleam snowy-white,
  Brightened by her pearly light.

Thou whose restless high endeavor
Led thee from my sight forever
  To thy home beyond the sea,
  Comes there any thought of me?

Only last year thou wast roaming
With me in the dewy gloaming,
  Talking with low murmuring lips
  Of the moonlight and the ships.

Now again I wander nightly,
When the radiance, falling whitely
  All across the sleeping bay,
  Builds a broad and shining way;

But the scene, so dreamy, tender,
Loses half its mystic splendor,
  Since upon the whispering shore
  Thou wilt walk with me no more.

For, though fame and beauty ever
Crown thine earnest life-endeavor,
  On the moon-rise and the sea
  Thou hast looked thy last with me.