Moonlight floods the ocean waters
with a river wide as Amazon;
one small junk, silent, silhouetted,
black and cowled like an ancient spectre
creeps unheeded on the dazzling sea;
rising to the lambent moon
my eyes fix in a kind of ecstasy
which swells and beats
swells and beats
with the grasshopper's' song
and the wavelets moaning
a thousand feet below
And when my ship with sharpened prow shall pass
across this silvered surface of candelabra glass
a flying wind shall carry high my song,
the drifting wave my farewell sigh,
and bear upon the wings of air
a small cloud shadow on the glistening sea.
And when across your house's roof this thought shall glide
remember then the mountain and the moon,
the terraced temple that overlooked the scene
and may that self-same breezes voice
that whispered there, acacia wise, that night
grow again in both our silenced hearts.