The Moon more indolently dreams to-night

This evening the Moon dreams more languidly,

Than a fair woman on her couch at rest,

Like a beauty who on many cushions rests,

Caressing, with a hand distraught and light,

And with her light hand fondles lingeringly,

Before she sleeps, the contour of her breast.

Before she sleeps, the slope of her sweet breasts.

Upon her silken avalanche of down,

On her soft satined avalanches' height

Dying she breathes a long and swooning sigh;

Dying, she laps herself for hours and hours

And watches the white visions past her flown,

In long, long swoons, and gazes at the white

Which rise like blossoms to the azure sky.

Visions which rise athwart the blue-like flowers.

And when, at times, wrapped in her languor deep,

When sometimes in her perfect indolence

Earthward she lets a furtive tear-drop flow,

She lets a furtive tear steal gently thence.

Some pious poet, enemy of sleep,

Some pious poet, a lone, sleepless one,

Takes in his hollow hand the tear of snow

Takes in his hollowed hand this gem, shot through,

Whence gleams of iris and of opal start,

Like an opal stone, with gleams of every hue,

And hides it from the Sun, deep in his heart.

And in his heart's depths hides it from the sun.