The Lily-Pads

The Lily-Pads

(After Li Po)

Cold ’neath the moon the dark glass-green
Water runs whitening o’er, as though
A million silvery fins below
Cut twinkling up through the quivering sheen
The aloofness of grim skies leans o’er.

Night has some secret grief she broods
In these wide watery solitudes
I think,—she fills me so with the keen
Chill of her own approachless moods
Eerie and sad ’twixt shore and shore.

I dip an oar, and send the boat
Landward. I have no heart tonight
For the waste waves and wan moonlight
And the— Ah! here the lilies float. . . .
Pardon the touch of this rude oar!

The Theosophical Path, February 1924