The Moonlight Desert

Above the desert's dark-obscured expanse The rounded moon uplooms; at once laid clear The waste leaps on the sight, the far and near Known equally. As in a silver trance, Its sand agleam, the desert lies outrolled. How bright, seen through the burnt-out atmosphere, The moon and the augmented stars appear, Yet how aloof, incurious and cold! Silent as they the waste outspreads, in white Unbroken, save where lonely boulders cast Their dusky-purple shadows on the sand— Holding Death's terror and its wisdom fast Within that silence—sinister and bright, A dead, unutterably ancient land.