Sweet Hours by Carmen Sylva — Read

The moon has but one side of light and beauty, / The other, steeped in never-ending night, / Seems worse than dead, as in the harmony / Of spheres, she cannot even echo. And / She died they say, for love of her great brother, / The glorious Sun, whom she may never reach, / Condemned to be apart, for that great sin / Of love. He was the light and life and joy / Of all her world, how could she then refrain / And love not, when her brother was a god? / But then she died, you see, and was forgiven.

Wherefore is Earth so dark and yet alive? / Wherefore doth fire still melt the gold in depths / So fathomless, that not a spark may light / The poor outside? She wanders through the worlds, / Unknown, without a ray, and yet alive / With foaming waters and with words as proud / As flowing hair. Why art thou dark, O Earth? / If thou wert sinless, would not dancing rays / Laugh through the night and gladden other planets? / Would not thy bosom's warmth give life again / To yonder ghost, thy mate in misery? / What hast thou done to be condemned to darkness, / To be a living hell, wherein the souls / Of millions suffer until death? Thy heart / Is gold: hast thou betrayed the sun? Or hast / Thou stolen wondrous goods, in gliding from / The sun? Therefore is Death to be thy child, / A curse to wander on thy lovely sides, / That oft are torn and ever motherly / Will comfort the offender with her off'rings.