The Winter Moon Perched above the mountains high Glowing bright in the ebony sky An Angle of the passing gloom The golden orb of the winter moon Its moonbeams pierce the dark of night And descend upon the blanket white A fiery shimmer on the icy land Lit by the touch of the moonbeams hand Oh darkness darkness, of winters night Afraid you are of the angels light Run away you evil gloom For its the time of the winter moon. © 1992 James Parker Haley Used with permission: Now Winter Nights Enlarge ~Thomas Campion~ (1567-1620) Now winter nights enlarge The number of their hours; And clouds their storms discharge Upon the airy towers. Let now the chimneys blaze And cups o'erflow with wine, Let well-tuned words amaze With harmony divine. Now yellow waxen lights Shall wait on honey love While youthful revels, masques, and courtly sights Sleep's leaden spell remove. This time doth well dispense With lovers' long discourse; Much speech hath some defense, Though beauty no remorse. All do not all things well; Some measures comely tread, Some knotted riddles tell, Some poems smoothly read. The summer hath his joys, And winter his delights; Though love and all his pleasures are but toys, They shorten tedious nights. Perhaps an Angel Told You Once of Love Perhaps an angel told you once of love, A spirit pure, not knowing fear or shame. Until that whispered word, perhaps, you came Less willing to the winds that some hearts move, After which you had for them a name. Shadow is the haunt of beauty Shadow is the haunt of beauty. Ecstasy closes the eyes. The light illumines only a disguise; Halfway out the door is truth. Listening does not imply sound; Offering does not imply need. Reason edits more than it reveals. Readiness is a way of seeing. After the word, there is the being; Inside the word, the thing itself kneels. Nothingness the earth, the word is the seed: Each person, each thing, each moment a wound. All Through The Night Sleep, my child and peace attend thee, All Through the Night. Guardian angels God will send Thee All Through the night. Soft the drowsy hours are creeping Hill and vale in slumber sleeping; God His loving vigil keeping All Through the Night. An Old Man's Winter Night ~Robert Frost~(1874-1963) All out of doors looked darkly in at him Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars, That gathers on the pane in empty rooms. What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand. What kept him from remembering what it was That brought him to that creaking room was age. He stood with barrels round him -- at a loss. And having scared the cellar under him In clomping there, he scared it once again In clomping off; -- and scared the outer night, Which has its sounds, familiar, like the roar Of trees and crack of branches, common things, But nothing so like beating on a box. A light he was to no one but himself Where now he sat, concerned with he knew what, A quiet light, and then not even that. He consigned to the moon, such as she was, So late-arising, to the broken moon As better than the sun in any case For such a charge, his snow upon the roof, His icicles along the wall to keep; And slept. The log that shifted with a jolt Once in the stove, disturbed him and he shifted, And eased his heavy breathing, but still slept. One aged man -- one man -- can't keep a house, A farm, a countryside, or if he can, It's thus he does it of a winter night.