Song of the Moon
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Text byPercy Bysshe Shelley
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Near the end of Prometheus Unbound, Shelley's epic "closet drama"--a genre of Romantic play intended to be staged only in the reader's imagination--the earth and the moon sing a love song to each other as the universe is unified in song and spirit. The text of this poem is taken from the author's reworking of the original song into a more succinct and perhaps more pure form that was published later by Mary Shelley under the title "Variation on the Song of the Moon."
Though the text can certainly be heard as a Romantic love poem--the pairing of earth and moon often a metaphor for the masculine and feminine in Romantic poetry--it is, I think, also a great celebration of spirituality, the harmony of the universe, and the oneness of all things.
Though the text can certainly be heard as a Romantic love poem--the pairing of earth and moon often a metaphor for the masculine and feminine in Romantic poetry--it is, I think, also a great celebration of spirituality, the harmony of the universe, and the oneness of all things.
As a violet's gentle eye
Gazes on the azure sky
Until its hue grows like what it beholds;
As a gray and empty mist
Lies like solid amethyst
Over the western mountain it enfolds,
When the sunset sleeps
Upon its snow;
As a strain of sweetest sound
Wraps itself the wind around
Until the voiceless wind be music too;
As aught dark, vain, and dull,
Basking in the beautiful,
Is full of light and love-
Gazes on the azure sky
Until its hue grows like what it beholds;
As a gray and empty mist
Lies like solid amethyst
Over the western mountain it enfolds,
When the sunset sleeps
Upon its snow;
As a strain of sweetest sound
Wraps itself the wind around
Until the voiceless wind be music too;
As aught dark, vain, and dull,
Basking in the beautiful,
Is full of light and love-
- Kristopher Maloy
