I know how a murderer feels to-night.



ARISTARCHUS
(THE NAME OF THE MOUNTAIN IN THE MOON)



It was long and long ago our love began;
It is something all unmeasured by time's span:
In an era and a spot, by the Modern World forgot,
We were lovers, ere God named us, Maid and Man.

Like the memory of music made by streams,
All the beauty of that other love life seems;
But I always thought it so, and at last I know, I know,
We were lovers in the Land of Silver Dreams.

When the moon was at the full, I found the place;
Out and out, across the seas of shining space,
On a quest that could not fail, I unfurled my memory's sail
And cast anchor in the Bay of Love's First Grace.

At the foot of Aristarchus lies this bay,
(Oh! the wonder of that mountain far away!)
And the Land of Silver Dreams all about it shines and gleams,
Where we loved before God fashioned night or day.

We were souls, in eerie bodies made of light;