The moonlight
Yvor Winters

I waited on 
In the late autumn moonlight
A train droning out of thought--

The mind on moonlight
And on trains.

Blind as a thread of water
Stirring through a cold like dust,
Lonely beyond all silence

And humming this to children,
The nostalgic listeners in sleep,

Because no guardian 
Stirs stories through distance upon distance,
His eyes a web of sleep.

"The moonlight" appeared in Secession No. 7 (Winter 1924).
Yvor Winters, born October 17, 1900 in Chicago, was a poet,
critic and professor. He was the author of many books, including 
his collected poems (Swallow press, 1960, which won the 
Bolinger Prize. He died on January 25, 1968.