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.