The Moon

My desert from your native land how many a league divides! Yet by your power the waters of my heart feels these rough tides.

To what far gathering are you bound, what far gathering come? Your face is blanched, as if from journeyings long and wearisome.

You in this universe all light, and I all darkness, share One destiny together in our valley of despair

I burn in a flame of longing, ah! burn for the gift of sight, And you, all seared with fires of longing, bed the sun for light;

And if your footsteps cannot stray from one fixed circle’s bound, I too move in one circle as a compass-hand moves round.

You roam forlorn life’s path to whose dull griefs I too am doomed, You shining through creation’s throng, I in my flame consumed

A long road lies before me and a long road waits for you; The silence of your thronging skies is here in my heart too.

My nature is like yours, you who were born to seek, to rove, Though yours are silver rays—the light that guides my feet is love.

I too dwell among many: if you go companionless Amid the company of heaven, I know your loneliness;

And when for you the blaze of dawn proclaims extinction, I Drown with you in the crystal glory of eternity.

And yet, yet, radiant moon! we are not of one race; it is No heart like your heart that can feel and tell its miseries.

Though you are of light, and I of darkness made, you are Still far from thirst of consciousness, a thousand journeys far;

Before my soul the path lies clear in view that it must trace— No gleam of knowledge such as mine will ever light your face.