A Ship, An Isle, A Sickle Moon

A Ship, an isle, a sickle moon--

With few but with how splendid stars

The mirrors of the sea are strewn

Between their silver bars!

 

An isle beside an isle she lay,

The pale ship anchored in the bay,

While in the young moon's port of gold

A star-ship--as the mirrors told--

Put forth its great and lonely light

to the unreflecting Ocean, Night.

And still, a ship upon her seas,

The isle and the island cypresses

Went sailing on without the gale:

And still there moved the moon so pale,

A crescent ship without a sail!





James Elroy Flecker